fifass P '<l 4- 7 



Book 



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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT 



HISTORY OF 

SUMMERS 
COUNTY 




1 908 



T^ROM THE EARLIEST 
r SETTLEMENT TO 
THE PRESENT TIME 



By JAMES H. MILLER 

HINTON, WEST VIRGINIA 



LIBRARY of CONFESS 
Two G< fies Received 

MAY US 1908 

QtW'ltfUi WIS* 

OQW A. 



COPYRIGHT, 1908, BY 

JAMES H. MILLER 

HINTON, W. VA. 



Thti book is dedicated 
to the people of Summers 
County, who have, for thirty 
years, so loyally showed 
their faith in a penniless 
youth of their own soil, 
and to whom he is indebted 
for whatever of success or 
honor he has attained in 
their midst. 

—THE AUTHOR. 



PREFACE 



The people of this county have not heretofore taken the interest 
in their past ancestry to which that ancestry was entitled, or the 
interest that should exist in all men of the present for the past. 

Local history and Tradition is to many of the greatest interest 
and value, and no man should fail to feel some pride in the place 
of his nativity, or the ancestor from whom he sprang, however 
humble they may have been. All helped to build up and create 
this nation and its civilization, now becoming more populous than 
are the stars in the heavens, and whose people are as numerous 
as the sand of the sea. Those pioneers who spent their lives in 
clearing the forests, preparing and laying the foundations for the 
happiness of myriads to follow, deserve not oblivion, although many 
of the incidents and facts of a local value are lost to history, and 
no history of a local community can be complete without them ; 
it is to be hoped this imperfect chronicle may at least create a 
greater interest for the future. 

Each citizen should remember that he is not the beginning 
nor the end of his family. He only counts one in the census. As 
he reveres his father, so will his children revere him ; as he honors 
his father, so will his children honor him, and so sure as he forgets 
his ancestry, so sure will posterity forget him, and his name will 
pass from this world into the same oblivion that forever enshrouds 
the Hottentot, the Hindoo and the heathen. People will look for- 
ward to posterity who never look backward to their ancestry, and 
in a crude way we have undertaken to preserve to posterity some 
of those events which have not yet passed into oblivion. 

The leading incidents of the life of a small and weak munic- 
ipality will be chronicled, of one only, which goes to make up a 

small integral part, and influences of the destinies of the great 

vii 



viii 



PREFACE. 



republic (it will be simply, "the short and simple annals of the 
poor"), which may be thus preserved to future posterity, chronicled 
at a time "whereof the memory of man runneth not to the con- 
trary" — at a time when the Republic is on the high road to greater 
achievements and glory, and at a time when we are proud that we 
are the direct descendants of the hardy pioneers, one of whose chief 
glories was in his priceless honor and patriotism and in his aiding 
in making this land the land of the "free and the home of the brave." 

Our readers will appreciate that this book is aimed to be and 
is exclusively a chronicle of our own and of prescribed territory, 
and not of adjoining and contiguous territory, and also that it is 
fragmentary, prepared at odd moments. 

I am under obligations to numerous friends for aid rendered 
in providing me data in regard to family history, especially to 
Prof. George W. Lilly, relating to the Lilly, Farley and Cook fami- 
lies; J. Lee Barker as to the Barker ancestry; David Graham in re 
the Graham family and ancient incidents ; Reverends W. F. Hank, 
G. W. Hollandsworth and L. L. Lloyd, and G. W. Leftwich, James 
Gwinn, Harrison Gwinn, Esqrs., in regard to church history; to 
W. W. Jones, Evan B. Neely, I. G. Carden, J. E. C. L. Hatcher for 
information as to the enlisted Confederate soldiers; Hon. B. P. 
Shumate, Hon. S. W. Willey and Andrew L. Campbell, Esq., J. M. 
Meador and W. H. Boude for court records and other courtesies. 
The lineage of numerous families would have been more complete 
had I received the response and aid of those from whom informa- 
tion was requested. 

James H. Miller. 

December i, 1907. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. page 

Territorial Lineage 1 

Lord Fairfax 4 

CHAPTER II. 

Fragments of Ancient History . . 15 

First Declaration of Independence 25 

CHAPTER III. 

Aboriginal and Ancient 31 

Diagram of Fort 42 

CHAPTER IV. 

In the Early Days 47 

CHAPTER V. 

Topography, Geography, etc 66 

CHAPTER VI. 

First Settlers and Pioneers 85 

CHAPTER VII. 

First Settlers of Hinton 103 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Formation of Summers County 114 

Act establishing Summers County 116 

ix 



x TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER IX. page. 

First County Officials and Organization 124 

Elections— 1871 134 

1872 139 

1874 ..." :.. 163 

1875..., 166 

1876 169 

1877 166 

1878 177 

1880 178 

1882 184 

1883 191 

1884 194-197 

Capitol Election 171 

Miscellaneous information, 1871-1890, see Chapter IX. 

CHAPTER X. 

Some Chronological Data 150 

Ayers, Jas. M ' facing 184 

Breen, M. N . facing 184 

CHAPTER XL 

Changes 198 

CLIAPTER XII. 

In War Times 202 

Camp A.llen Woodrum 217 

Harrison, Nathaniel... 228 

Prices During the War 226 

Rebellion, Last Fight of 228 

Results of War 226 

Soldiers .' 210 

Soldiers, Federal 218 

Soldiers, Spanish-American War 219 

Session Acts of West Virginia Legislature, 1866 227 

Woodrum, Allen, Death of : 208 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Bank of Hinton 245 

Hinton, Distances from 246 

Hinton Hardware Co : 247 

National Bank of Summers .- 244 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. xi 

CHAPTER XIV. page. 

Land Titles .. 249 

West, John, Lands 264 

CHAPTER XV. 

Elections 266 

1884 • 272 

1888 272 

1890 : 273 

1892 273 

1894..... 274 

1896 275 

1898 277 

1900 278 

1902 ..." 281 

1904 .- 281 

Elections, prior, see Chapter IX. 

CHAPTER XVI. 

Schools 290 

Graded Schools 300 

History of Education in Summers County 295 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Churches 302 \jf 

Baptist, Bluestone 323 

Baptist, Central 321 

Baptist, Fairview 316 

Baptist, Indian Mills 304 

Baptist, Lick Creek 308 

Baptist, Rollinsburg.- 306 

Christian, Indian Mills 320 

Methodist Episcopal South, Forest Hill. .. 319 

Methodist Episcopal South, Hinton 303 

Methodist Episcopal South, Talcott 318 

Oak Grove Church 322 

Presbyterian, Green Sulphur 315 

Presbyterian, Hinton 305 

Presbyterian, Keller 312 

Saint Patrick's Church 317 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Hotels 325 

Hotel McCreery 327 



xii TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XIX. page. 

Political 329 

Graham, C. H 344 

CHAPTER XX. 

Roads 344 

CHAPTER XXL 

Names 351 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



FACING PAGE 

Adams, Hon. W. W 684 

Alley, W. S 724 

Ayres, James M 184 

Bowling, Walter P 496 

Baber, C. A 512 

Bolton, Jas. D 534 

Brightwell, W. J 418 

Bolton, H. A.... r. 423 

Bolton, Rev. A. D 280 

Bacon, Nathaniel 672 

Barker, J. Lee 678 

Boude, Walter H 702 

Breen, Captain M. N 184 

Barksdale, Wm. Leigh 572 

Ballangee, David Graham . 710 

Campbell, A. N . 624 

Campbell, Jas. P .' 624 

Campbell, A. L 654 

Clark, Chas 478 

Compton Family 490 

Capeller, John 452 

Codle, James E 434 

Daly, A. D, 488 

Dunn, Hon. E. L 576 

Dunn, L. M 604 

Ewart, F 568 

Ewart-Miller Building 832 

Ford, Hon. A 592 

Flanagan, A. G 612 

Flanagan, Robt. R 618 

Foss Bridge 738 

Fowler, Elbert 460 

Fox, Dr. J. A /. 712 



xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 

FACING PAGE 

Gallagher, F. M .... 654 

Gwinn, M... 660 

Gwinn, Andrew 660 

Garnett, W. H 734 

George, Jas. H 518 

Graham, Chas.. H.. . . . ... . . . ... . .. ... . . ... .... v 344 

Garden, Chas., Sr 526 

Graham, David 364 

Graham, R. Hunter 364 

Graham, John : 370 

Graham, J. A 370 

Gooch, Benjamin P 418 

Gwinn, H , 508 

Gerow, Henry S . . . . , 234 

Harrison, J. C 592 

Heflin, Archie Roy 606 

Harvey, John E 618 

Hoge, B. L . 724 

Hutchinson, A. M 508 

Hobbs, Jas. A , 526 

" Hinton, John 534 

Haynes, Wm 560 

Hutchinson, Michael, and Wife 560 

Higginbotham, Upshur... 428 

Hatfield, Captain 444 

Hinton, Joseph 408 

Hinton, Mrs. Avis 664 

Hedrick, Wm. C ..544 

Johnston, Albert Sydney 606 

James, J. C 502 

Jordan, G. L. and J. H 380 

Jones, W. W 423 

Jones, W. W ' 280 

Keatley, A. J 496 

Kesler, O. T ..568 

Keadle, J. E *. ....435 

Lilly, Geo. W 464 

Lilly, Greenlee 464 

Lilly, T. H 472 

Lavender, J. B 472 

Lilly, G. L 390 

Litsinger, P. K 794 

McCfeery, Jas. T 580 

Manning, M. A 604 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xv 

FACING PAGE 

Mann, Thos. G 672 

McLaughlin, Nannie B 478 

Miller, Four Generations . 386 

Miller, Geo. A 390 

Miller, Wm. E 394 

Miller, James H Frontispiece 

Miller, James ft 400 

Miller, C. L 394 

Meador, Joe M 404 

Meador, D. M 404 

Meadows, A. G. t 408 

Maxwell, Robert H 434 

Neeley, L. M., Sr , 696 

Neeley, L. M., Jr 696 

Noell, N. W. 512 

Pack, Rebecca 448 

Pack, Josephus 452 

Pence, A. P........... , 720 

Peck, Shannon P 484 

Read, Thos. Nash.. .' 484 

Ryan, W. G , 550 

Richmond, John A 412 

Smith, Jas. F. 670 

Shumate, B. P 460 

Sawyers, Wm. H 488 

Swope, J. J 444 

Taylor, S.'F.... : .. 656 

Thompson, Benj. S 702 

Thompson, Hon. Wm. R 634 

Woodrum, Major Richard. 656 

West Virginia Colony 812 

Withrow, C. Wran 412 

Warren, M. M 416 

Warren, W. H 416 

Wiseman, John W 550 

Willey, S. W ' 502 

Walsh, Father David 576 

Walker, Lee 794 



History of Summers County 



CHAPTER I. 



TERRITORIAL LINEAGE. 

This continent was claimed to have been discovered by the 
Icelanders, by the Welsh and the Norwegians, and no doubts exist 
but that there are reasons and foundations for these claims ; but the 
discoveries, whatever were made, were accidental, and were not 
from a preconceived effort to discover a new world by the applica- 
tion of scientific principles, and the discoveries were useless to civili- 
zation or mankind. The merit of all is due to the native of Genoa, 
and it has for ages, by universal consent, been properly conceded to 
him. Of the existence of this world Columbus only knew from his 
science, and his adventurous daring led him to seek for it and to 
find it. He it is to whom we are entitled to give all the undivided 
glory for an exploit, and for which he only received the ignoring 
of his sovereign and of his contemporaries ; and to Italy the glory 
of being the birthplace of this illustrious man, from whose great 
and brilliant achievements a new world has arisen from the wil- 
derness inhabited by a savage people, and on whose soil great 
nations have grown, as well as the most splendid civilization, as 
well as an example of the glorious liberties intended by the Creator. 
This discovery was on the 14th day of October, 1492, nearly 300 
years before any white settlements were made permanent west of 
the Allegheny Mountains. 

The first attempt to settle the Virginia country was made by 
Sir Walter Raleigh in 1584, but this settlement failed. The settlers 
became discouraged, and, on being visited by the famous Sir Fran- 
cis Drake, pulled up and sailed back for England, just as supplies 
and aid were coming to their relief. Later, Raleigh sent other sup- 
plies, never forgetting his colonists, but all met with disaster, and 
thus failed the first attempt at a settlement, which was on the island 



2 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of Roanoke, North Carolina, but then known as Virginia. These 
settlers had fatal experiences with the Indians, who were savage 
and barbarous towards their enemies, but kind and helpful towards 
their friends. Raleigh was a gallant nobleman, imprisoned and 
beheaded by his sovereign, Queen Elizabeth. 

The next effort for a settlement was that at Jamestown, on the 
James River, in 1606, under a charter granted by King James the 
First. This charter included the present territory of West Vir- 
ginia, and this settlement was to be a permanent one, and was the 
first on the new continent and world discovered by Columbus. 
Capt. John Smith was appointed governor, but his associates were 
jealous, and deposed him before his investment; but he was the 
leading spirit, and soon all matters concerning the government of 
the colonists were referred to him. The settlements were confined 
to the region east of the Blue Ridge for the first one hundred years 
after the Smith settlement at Jamstown, when Alex. Spottswood, 
in 1710, was made governor, and soon after, with a troop of thirty 
horse, explored the valley beyond the top of the Blue Ridge, for 
which notable, daring event he was knighted by the King of Eng- 
land, and these adventurers were known to history as the Horseshoe 
Knights by reason of the gift of the king to Spottswood of a minia- 
ture golden horseshoe, with the motto inscribed, ''Sic jurat trans cen- 
dere montes," after the Smith settlement at Jamestown, when Alex. 
Spottswood was succeeded by Gooch as governor, a general of the 
British army, who has descendants now in this and Mercer Coun 
ties ; Dr. Carl Gooch and Mr. Thomas Gooch. After this notable 
event the valley was settled, and a lunatic ventured across the Al- 
leghenies, and wandered into the Greenbrier region, and, on wan- 
dering back to his old habitations, he reported in the country quanti- 
ties of game, after which the adventurer, the hunter and the trapper 
came and went, reporting the country, and finally came the pioneer 
and the settler. The government of the country was altogether 
under the British Crow r n until 1776, when the Declaration of 
Independence was written, and after that glorious event the juris- 
diction passed to the Commonwealth of Virginia, under which it 
continued until the twenty-third day of June, 1863, at which date 
West Virginia was admitted into the Union, and since that date 
under the jurisdiction of that Commonwealth. 

This territory was a part of the original thirteen States named 
in honor of Elizabeth, the virgin Queen of England, and comprised 
all of the territory north of Florida extending from ocean to ocean 
across this continent from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and when the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



3 



charter was granted by the Crown of England creating the South 
Virginia Company, usually known as the London Company, prac- 
tically the whole of North America was called Virginia, and in- 
cluded the territory between thirty-four degrees and forty-five de- 
grees north latitude, and the London Company's charter in Vir- 
ginia was between thirty-four and forty-one degrees north latitude, 
it being conceded that south of what was known as Florida belonged 
to Spain, and that the northern region was conceded to France, but 
much of the territory within the London Company's charter, or 
Virginia territory, was claimed as within the dominion of the 
French Kings. The session of territory from the State of Vir- 
ginia to the United States was made March 1, 1784, and the gift 
from Virginia to the general government was 195,431,680 acres, the 
most valuable gift to the nation ever bestowed upon it. The ter- 
ritory of Virginia now, after all its sessions and mutilations, is 
about 40,000 square miles, after the last slice was taken therefrom 
of 23,000 square miles and formed into West Virginia. 

Virginia was divided into eight original counties in 1634, 
the first division of the kind recorded in history, and in one 
of these eight counties our territory was included as a part 
of Accomack County, later Northampton, after the Earl of North- 
umberland. To show the recklessness with which the British 
Kings gave away their dominions in Virginia, and what little value 
they attached thereto, we mention the grant by Charles II. in 1661 
to Lord Hopton, which included all of the territory lying in Amer- 
ica, bounded by and within the headwaters of the Rappahannock, 
the Potomac and the Chesapeake Bay. It was sold by the patentee 
to Lord Culpepper in 1683, and was confirmed by further patents 
from James II., and is known as the famous Fairfax Domin- 
ions. The elder Lord Fairfax, who was the fifth of the line, 
married the only daughter of Lord Culpepper. These lands 
descended to the son of this marriage. Lord Thomas Fairfax, the 
sixth Baron of Cambridge. He came to Virginia in 1739 to look 
after his estate. This estate included the territory comprised within 
the counties of Fincastle, Northumberland, Richmond, Westmore- 
land, King George, Stafford, Prince William, Fauquier, Fairfax, 
Louden,' Culpepper, Clark, Madison, Page, Shenandoah and Fred- 
erick, which were within the present limits of Virginia, and Hardy, 
Hampshire, Morgan, Berkeley and Jefferson within the State of 
West Virginia, in all aggregating 6,000,000 acres ; and it was this 
Fairfax that discovered that the Potomac River headed in the Al- 
legheny Mountains, and the innumerable law suits growing out of 



4 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the same created the commissions and the planting of the famous 
Fairfax Stone. Augusta County, formed in 1738 from Orange, was 
named in honor of Princess Augusta. West Augusta was never a 
county or a political or municipal division, but was a great expanse 
of all the territory west of the top of the Alleghenies, and was 
called West Augusta, but was never recognized by legislative or 
other enactments. 

LORD FAIRFAX. 

This English lord, with all his dominion, equal to a great com- 
monwealth, lived and died in a single story-and-a-half house. He 
owned 150 negro servants, who lived in log huts scattered about in 
the woods. Fairfax's house was destroyed by fire in 1834. Lord 
Dunmore brought his forces to this place in 1784, when he was 
marching after the Indians toward Point Pleasant. They dug a 
deep well at this place and erected a magazine for war purposes. 
Fairfax was a dark, swarthy man, several inches over six feet, of 
gigantic frame and of great strength. He was a bachelor, and lived 
on the coarse fare of the country, the same as that of the peasantry 
around him. When in a humor he was generous, giving away 
whole farms and requiring nothing in return. He would give away 
a farm in exchange for the courtesy of a turkey killed for him for 
dinner. Fairfax County was named after him. 

Our territory was within the boundaries of that Commonwealth 
which furnished an example to the world by adopting a perfectly 
independent Constitution ; the first to recommend the Declaration 
of Independence ; the first to declare for "religious freedom" ; it 
furnished her great son, first among the leaders of the army of the 
nation ; and her officers and soldiers, whether in the shock of battle 
or marching, half-clad, ill-fed and barefooted, amid the snows of 
the North, through pestilential marshes and under burning suns in 
the far South, evinced a bravery and fortitude unsurpassed. The 
War of the Revolution was practically extinguished in 1780 at the 
surrender at Yorktown of Lord Cornwallis, and then began the 
great impetus to the development and settlement of the territory to 
the west of the Alleghenies by the pioneers, the ancestors of the 
present generation in the land ; and it was within the territory which 
produced Jefferson, Marshall, Madison, Monroe, Masons, Nicholas, 
Henry, Randolph, Pendleton, Lees, Wythe, Harrison, Bland, Tay- 
lor, Grayson, and a host of others who met and formed the glorious 
Constitution of 1788, under which we live, and within the territory 
of the Commonwealth which so loyally supported her President, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



5 



Madison, in the second war with England in 1812, furnishing sol- 
diers whose descendants still inhabit this territory. 

This territory is within the boundary of the commonwealth 
which first introduced religious liberty to the world. The most of 
the institutions of this country have grown by evolution from be- 
ginnings made by the early settlers and brought by the aboriginal 
ancestors from their homes across the seas. We have no stories 
of royal dynasties, or orders of nobility, or ancient castles. They 
are wanting in our American history, but we have much to com- 
pensate us for all we lack of the more ancient days — the story of 
marvelous development and unprecedented growth of our peoples 
and institutions. We have the personal story of barefoot boys, 
born among the lowly, but untrammeled by the iron fetters of 
caste, rising by the force of their own genius to the highest 
ranks of the political and industrial world. The greatest states- 
men of this land, the commanders of armies and captains of indus- 
try, have practically all arisen from the commonest walks, and the 
true stories of this country are more fascinating than any history 
of the ancients. It also recites the removal of an ancient race 
from the soil upon which has been transplanted another. We see 
the wild man of the forest in his native haunts, where he chases 
the wild animals, the deer and buffalo, or where he strives with his 
enemies in battle. His life was full of tragedy and wrongs — of 
rivalry, hatred and love. He was living in the vast solitudes of 
nature, in appearance content with his family and kindred who 
made the crude surroundings, and in a few short years you follow 
a stronger race coming from across the seas, and the long warfare 
between civilization and barbarian began. The wild man yielded 
or fled before the forces of a modern life, or died in the struggle 
with civilized forces. Then followed the pioneer with his axe, his 
cattle and his plow, and then began the development of a conti- 
nent. The new world became the home of the oppressed from 
every land. Towns rise where the forest waved over the wild 
man's home, and our hills and valleys resound with the teeming 
life of an industrious and ambitious people. 

Summers County was originally a part of the territory of Vir- 
ginia, settled by the English in 1607, by Capt. John Smith, a sol- 
dier of fortune, who had in the wars between the Turks and the 
Austrians, as a soldier of the Austrian Army, been wounded, cap- 
tured and sold into slavery in the Crimea, later killing his master 
with a flail while threshing wheat. He wandered through Ger- 
many and France, and finally landed in England as a colony was 



6 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



being made up, which sailed and settled at Jamestown three hun- 
dred years ago. He was a man of great capacity for adventure, 
and his life was saved by the Indian princess Pocahontas. He was 
the founder of Virginia, the first commonwealth in the world to be 
composed of county political subdivisions, based on universal suf- 
frage. In 1634 Virginia was divided into eight counties. The first 
hundred year's settlements were in the Piedmont and Tidewater 
regions. The solitudes west of the Blue Ridge were not pene- 
trated until one hundred years after the Jamestown settlement. 
Alexander Spottswood, whose descendants owned twenty-eight 
thousand acres of land in Summers County until about 1884, led 
the first band of adventurers to the summit of the Blue Ridge. He 
was born in 1676, in Tangiers, Africa. His father had been a sol- 
dier under Marlborough, and was dangerously wounded by the 
French, at the battle of Blenheim. 

He landed in Virginia June 23, 1710. As Lieutenant Governor 
Spottswood, with thirty cavalier horsemen, left Williamsburg June 
20, 1716, passing through King William, Middlesex, thence to the 
Rappahannock, the Rapidan, Green County; Blue Ridge, at Swift 
Run Gaps, crossing the Shenandoah ten miles below Port Republic 
in Rockingham County, until, on the 5th of September, 1716, they 
arrived at one of the loftiest peaks of the Appalachian Range, in 
Pendleton County, W. Va. 

veyor, made the first scientific observations ever made upon the 
Allegheny Mountains. 

Said Spottswood was born, as stated, in Tangiers, in Africa, a 
colony of the English Crown, in 1676, and seems to have been some- 
thing of a soldier of fortune. He served with the famous dissolute 
Duke of Marlborough, and was wounded at Blenheim. After his good 
fortune in becoming a ruler in Virginia, he determined to explore 
the territory west of the Allegheny Mountains, and learn more of 
the western region ; and with that end in view organized a party of 
thirty horsemen at Williamsburg, and left that town on the 20th of 
June, 1716, and reached the highest peak of the Alleghenies, which 
is in Pendleton County, W est Virginia, on the 5th day of Septem- 
ber, 1716; and there Robert Brook, the King's surveyor, made the 
first scientific observation ever made in the Allegheny Mountains. 
To induce western settlements, Spottswood instituted the Knights 
of the Golden Horseshoe, the insignia of the order being a minia- 
ture horseshoe, with the inscription thereon, "Sic jurat trans cen- 
dere monies" — "Thus he swears to cross the mountain." These 
were given by Spottswood to any one who would comply with the 
inscription, and carry out his project to secure exploration of this 



OLD TIME TOBACCO BARN 
Talcott, Forest Hill and Pipestem Districts 
the Days of Tobacco Growing. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



7 



western country, and secure emigration thereto. The Shenandoah 
Valley, through which runs the Shenandoah River — "The Daugh- 
ter of the Stars" — had not then been settled. 

The close of the Revolution, followed by the victory of Wayne 
at Fallen Timbers over the Indians, crushing their power, finally 
opened the way for the pioneer and settler west of the Alleghenies. 

In 1776 Thomas Jefferson, within three days after he took his 
seat in the Legislature, introduced a bill for the establishment of 
courts of justice, and three days later a bill to convert estates — tail 
into fee simple. This was a blow to the aristocracy of Virginia. 

In the early days of the colony of Virginia large grants of land 
had been obtained from the Crown of England by a favored few 
individuals, which had been preserved in their families by means 
of entails, so as to form by degrees a political class among the 
colonists, and the same class monopolized the civil honors. Mr. 
Jefferson's reason for destroying this condition is given in his 
own words: "To annul this privilege, and, instead of an aristocracy 
of wealth of more harm and danger than benefit to society, to make 
an opening for the aristocracy of virtue and talent, which nature 
his wisely provided, for the direction of the interests of society, and 
scattered with an equal hand through all its conditions, was deemed 
essential to a well-ordered republic." Mr. Jefferson also intro- 
duced the law about this time to abolish the preferences given to 
the male sex and the first born, as provided by the English common 
law. The effects of these changes in the distribution of estates 
are very visible at this day in our country. 

Mr. Jefferson also about the same time had passed the law 
abolishing the church establishment, and put all religious sects on 
the same footing. The Church of England was the legally estab- 
lished religion of the territory of all Virginia up to this date. The 
Bill of Rights, drawn by George Mason on the 12th of June, 1776, 
distinctly provided for religious freedom'; but the Constitution, 
passed on the 29th, was silent on the subject. 

The territory credited to this county is 400 square miles, the 
constitutional minimum now and at the date of its formation; but, 
thanks to legal hocus pocus and fictions, we have not the consti- 
tutional territory, but we have the county as a municipality, and 
have managed to live, thrive, increase and grow, and will do so 
until the end of time, or until it shall have the calamity to fall 
into the wicked hands of the political ringster, grafter and buc- 
caneer. Its healthy thrift and growth, as exhibited in the thirty- 



8 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



six years of its life, is by reason of the strong, honest and fearless 
good government which has controlled its destinies. It is not to 
be assumed that its strongest, ablest, or wisest men have always 
been in the saddle, but we assert that honesty and fair and just 
principles have always guided the representatives of this little 
mountain municipality; and, so long as honor continues to prevail 
in the councils of its people, they will have no cause for shame, 
and will continue as free and independent as the followers of 
William Tell. 

Summers County was formed by an Act of the Legislature of 
West Virginia in 1871, introduced by Hon. Sylvester Upton, Repub- 
lican representative from Mercer County, residing in Jumping 
Branch Township, on New River Hills, and a most honorable, 
intelligent and fearless man. His actions at that day, when ostra- 
cism, "test oathism" and "carpet baggism" were rank in the land, 
stamped him as a noble man, and one of God's best on the earth. 
Its boundary lines, as set forth by the formative act, includes the 
two districts, Jumping Branch and Pipestem, that part of the 
- county west of New River, taken from Mercer County, which was 
created by an act of the General Assembly of Virginia, on the 
17th day of March, 1837, and was named after the Revolutionary 
General, Hugh Mercer, who was killed in the Revolutionary War 
of 1776, at the battle of Princeton. The county seat was named 
Princeton because it was the place of the tragic termination of 
the life of this great soldier, who was, at the beginning of the 
Revolution, a practicing physician at Fredericksburg. 

The boundaries of Mercer County, by the Act creating it, were 
as follows: "Beginning at the mouth of East River, in Giles 
County, and following the meanders thereof up to Toney's Mill 
Dam ; thence along the top of the mountain to a point opposite the 
upper end of the plantation of Jessie Belcher, deceased; thence a 
straight line to Peery's Mill Dam, near the mouth of Alp's (Abb's) 
Valley; thence to a point well known by the name of Peeled 
(Pealed) Chestnuts; thence to the top of Flat Top Mountain; 
thence along said mountain to New River ; thence up and along 
the various meanders of the same to the beginning." "It shall 
form one distinct and new county, and be known and called by the 
name of Mercer County, in memory of Gen. Hugh Mercer, who 
fell at Princeton." The governor was authorized to appoint jus- 
tices for the new county, and among those who were thus first 
commissioned who were from the territory cut off later to Sum- 
mers, were Robert Lilly and Robert Gore (the ancestors of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



9 



great Lilly generation and of the gallant Capt. Robert Gore, the 
first president of a county court in the new county). The first 
meeting of the justices for organization was at the house of James 
Calfee, one mile from Princeton, on the second Monday of 
April, 1837. John H. Vawter, of Monroe, and John B. George, of 
Tazewell, were appointed commissioners to run and mark the 
county line. Moses E. Kerr was the first clerk and Wm. Smith 
the first sheriff, and Robert Hall surveyor. The first Circuit Court 
was held May 1, 1837, by Judge James E. Brown, of Wythe County, 
who appointed John M. Cunningham clerk and Thos. J. Boyd, at- 
torney for the Commonwealth. Among the first grand jurors for 
this term were Green W. Meadows and Thomas Maxwell, whose 
descendants still inhabit the present territory of our county, Mercer 
being formed from Tazewell and Giles. Before the war there were 
two voting places in Mercer County, one at Princeton and one at 
Pipestem. The two townships cut off to Summers had formed 
a part of Giles prior to the date of the establishment of Mercer. 

Giles County was created by an Act of the General Assembly 
of Virginia, passed in January, 1806, and named for Hon. Wm. B. 
. Giles, a Virginia statesman of note. 

The boundaries of Giles were as follows : "Beginning at the 
end of the Gauley Mountain on New River, where the counties of 
Greenbrier and Kanawha intersect; thence up the (New) River 
with the Greenbrier and Montgomery County line to the upper end 
of Pine's Plantation ; thence a straight line to the mouth of Rich 
Creek; thence with the Montgomery and Monroe line to the inter- 
section of Botetourt County line and with the line of Montgomery 
and Botetourt to the top of Gap Mountain ; thence along the top 
of said mountain to New River, crossing the same to the end of 
Walker's Creek Mountain; thence along the top of said mountain 
to the intersection of Wythe County line ; thence northeastward 
and with said line to the intersection of Tazewell County line, and 
with Tazewell and Montgomery County lines to the top of Wolf 
Creek Mountain to a path leading from Round Bottom to Harman's 
Mills, about three miles below the mouth of Clear Fork to Wolf 
Creek; thence a straight line to the mouth of Milton's Fork; thence 
a direct line from Crane Creek to the top of Flat Top Mountain : 
thence a direct line to the three forks of the Guyandotte ; thence 
down said river until it intersects the Kanawha County line ; 
thence with said line to the beginning." 

Christian Snidow and John Peck, who were named as first jus- 
tices of the peace, have direct descendants living in Summers, and 



10 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



at a much later date there have immigrated into our county from 
Giles a number of our best and most substantial citizens, among 
them Absolem D. Bolton, David Leftwich, William J. Tabor, of 
Bargers Springs, and Wm. T. Gitt, one of the early lot owners in 
Upper Hinton ; C. R. Price, Frank, M. C. and M. Puckett and J. J. 
Christian. 

Giles County was formed from Montgomery, and Montgomery 
from Fincastle, by an Act of the General Assembly of Virginia, 
passed in October, 1776, the year of the Declaration ' of Indepen- 
dence. By this act Fincastle County was abolished, its territory 
being partitioned into three counties, Kentucky, Washington and 
Montgomery, Pipestem and Jumping Branch being assigned and 
made a part of the latter. 

Fincastle County was created by an Act of the Virginia As- 
sembly in February, 1772, to take effect December 1st following. 
It was formed by a division of Botetourt County. Fincastle County 
thus included all that territory within a line running up the east 
side of New River to the south of Culbertson's Creek, then a 
-direct line to the Catawba Road, where it crosses the dividing ridge 
between the north of the Roanoke and the waters of New River; 
thence with the top of the ridge to the Bent (Mountain), where it 
turns eastwardly; thence a southward course to the top of the 
Blue Ridge Mountains, to be established as a distinct county. 

Botetourt County was created by an Act of the Virginia Gen- 
eral Assembly, passed in November, 1769, to take effect January 
31, 1769. Prior to that date all the region included in Botetourt 
County was a part of Augusta County. Botetourt was named after 
a colonial governor of Virginia, Lord Botetourt, and Montgomery 
County after Gen. Richard Montgomery, the Irish patriot who 
fell at Quebec. 

The territory of Botetourt County before the division covered 
a vast region. The Act creating and partitioning Augusta County 
was as follows: "That from and after the 31st day of January next 
ensuing the said parish or county of Augusta be divided into two 
counties and parishes by a line beginning at the Blue Ridge, run- 
ning north 55 degrees, west to the confluence of Mong's Creek 
(or of the South River), with the north branch of the James River; 
thence up the same to the south of Kerr's Creek (Carr's) ; thence 
up said creek to the mountain ; thence north 45 degrees ; west as 
far as the courts of the two counties shall extend it. This line 
strikes the Ohio near Wheeling. 

"From the time of the partition of Virginia into counties, being 



PIONEER COTTAGE NEAR HINTON. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 11 



divided into eight, which was the first division of the territory of 
that great Commonwealth, and the first division of the character 
in the history of the world, all of the territory of Augusta, 
in fact, all of the territory of Virginia west of the Blue 
Ridge Mountains, was included in the county of Orange, which 
was organized in 1738 by an Act of the General Assembly of 
Virginia, at which date the territory west of the Blue Ridge was 
divided into Frederick and Augusta counties. Thus it will be seen 
Jumping Branch and Pipestem Districts first were a part of the 
great territory of Virginia, extending from the Atlantic, and in- 
cluding Ohio, Illinois and Kentucky and the Northwest territory; 
then included in Orange County, then in Augusta, then in Bote- 
tourt, then in Fincastle, then Montgomery, then Giles, then Mercer, 
and now Summers County, so that it is within the territory of one 
of the first counties ever laid out on the face of the earth as a 
political municipality. AVhile Orange was not one of the original 
counties of Virginia, it fared in the divisions in a comparatively 
short time after the first division of Virginia, which was into eight 
distinct counties. These two districts, Pipestem and Jumping 
Branch, came from this root, while the remainder of the county 
came through the Greenbrier source. Forest Hill and Talcott Dis- 
tricts were taken from Monroe County, which included the territory 
from the Lane Bottoms below Alderson near the mouth of Grif- 
fith's Creek, on the opposite side to the top of Keeney's Knob, and 
down the ridge of that mountain to New River at the present site 
of the new school building now in the course of construction in 
Avis ; up New River to Round Bottom ; thence back to Greenbrier 
River, including both Alderson and North Alderson. (See History 
of the County Line Controversy.) This territory was included in 
Monroe, which was cut off from Greenbrier by an Act of the Gen- 
eral Assembly of Virginia, January 14, 1799, Greenbrier being taken 
from Botetourt in October, 1777; by an Act of the General Assembly 
Green Sulphur District was cut from Greenbrier and Fayette. 
Fayette was created by an Act of the General Assembly of Vir- 
ginia in 1831, and was carved out of Greenbrier, Nicholas, Kan- 
awha and Logan." The original act creating Greenbrier County 
was as follows : 

"That from and after the first day of March next ensuing said 
county and parish of Botetourt shall be divided by a line beginning 
on the top of the ridge dividing the eastern from the western 
waters, where the line between Augusta and Botetourt crosses the 
same, and running thence the same course continued, north 55 and 



12 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

west to the Ohio River; thence at the ridge of the said line of 
Botetourt and Augusta, running along the top of said ridge, passing 
the Sweet Springs to the top of Peters Mountain ; thence along the 
said mountain to the line of Montgomery County; thence along 
the same line to the Kanawha or New River ; thence down the said 
river to the Ohio." 

After all its decapitations, Greenbrier is still one of the largest 
counties in area in the State, having 1,000 square miles; Randolph 
having 1,080, being the largest, and Greenbrier the next. Only a 
small part of our territory is from Fayette, being a part of Green 
Sulphur District, which had been a part of Greenbrier from 1778 
until 1831, the first division of Greenbrier being made in 1799 by the 
creation of Monroe. 

Thus it will be seen that our little municipality traces its terri- 
toiiel organization back to the colonization of Virginia and the 
days of Jamestown, Captain John Smith, and the romances of the 
Indian princess, Pocahontas. Its territorial lineage is thus ancient, 
-but for much the greater part of the century succeeding the first 
settlements of Virginia, it was only a habitation for savage men, 
wild animals, birds and the reptiles of the forest. 

The districts of Pipestem and Jumping Branch were within 
Giles County at its formation in 1806, and the people therein had 
to attend court at Pearisburg. The first court was held May 13, 
1806, in a house adjoining the dwelling-house of Capt. George 
Pearis on New River, where Pearisburg Station is now located. 
The first justices of the peace in the county were appoined by the 
governor, William H. Cabell, and were George Pearis, Thomas 
Shannon, Christian Snidow, David French, David Johnston, Ed- 
ward McDonald, Isaac Chapman, John Kirk, John Peck, Curtis 
Champ, John Burke and James Bane. David Johnston was com- 
missioned the first sheriff. His bond was $7,000, with Isaac Chap- 
man and Christian Snidow as sureties. James Hoge, deputy; David 
French and John McTaylor, deputies. George Pearis was elected 
presiding justice and commissioner of the revenue ; Philip Lybrook, 
county surveyor, and his bond fixed at $3,000, with John Lybrook 
as surety. Isaac Chapman was the first lawyer admitted to prac- 
tice in the courts of Giles County. 

FIRST DIVISION OF GREENBRIER COUNTY. 

An act of the General Assembly of Virginia, passed January 
13, 1799, dividing Greenbrier County, and by which Monroe County 
was formed, and from which Forest Hill, Talcott and a part of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



13 



Greenbrier District were taken by the Act forming Summers 
County. The beginning line as shown by this Act was where the 
ridge dividing eastern and western waters joins Peters Mountain, 
and with a ridge which divides Howard and Second Creek; thence 
to Alderson ; thence to the mouth of Muddy Creek to the divide 
between the waters of Muddy Creek and Griffith's Run, and with 
said divide to Keeney's Knobs, and with said Knobs, including the 
waters flowing into Greenbrier River to New River, and up the 
same to" where it breaks through Peters Mountain. 

Greenbrier County, which was formed in 1777, has been, as else- 
where stated, like the old State, partitioned many times. The 
counties which have been taken therefrom in whole or in part are 
as follows : Monroe, Summers, Kanawha, Nicholas, Bath and Fay- 
ette. Logan was formed in 1824 from Giles, Kanawha, Cabell and 
Tazewell; Fayette in 1831 from Logan, Greenbrier, Nicholas and 
Kanawha; Pocahontas in 1821 from Bath, Pendleton and Randolph; 
Nicholas in 1818 from Kanawha, Greenbrier and Randolph, and 
was named after Governor Nicholas. Mason was formed from 
Kanawha in 1804, and was named after George Mason; Giles was 
formed in 1806 from Monroe and Tazewell; Bath was formed in 
1791 from Augusta, Botetourt and Greenbrier; Kanawha was formed 
in 1789 from Greenbrier and Montgomery. It is in Giles County 
where the Salt Pond is situated, on top of the Salt Pond Mountain. 
It is a beautiful natural lake of pure, fresh water on the summit of 
one of the highest spurs of the Alleghenies. It is three miles long 
and a third of a mile wide. At its termination it is damned by a 
huge pile of rocks over which it runs, but which once passed 
through the fissures only. In the spring and summer of 1804 an 
immense quantity of leaves and other rubbish washed in and filled 
up the fissures, since which it has risen twenty-five feet. Previous 
to that time it was fed by a large spring. That finally disappeared, 
and many small springs now flow into it at its upper end. When 
first known it was the resort of vast numbers of elk, buffalo, deer 
and other animals for drink. Before it filled up it was said to have 
been a place for salting cattle, and it is said that trees of full size 
are standing in its bottom, at this day the water being higher than 
the trees, and at this time it is said to be receding, and at the pres- 
ent rate within a few years will entirely disappear. This is said to 
have occurred before in an intermittent manner with many years 
in the interim. 

" This lake was discovered by Christopher Gist, the friend of 
Washington. The water is as clear as crystal. Trees are seen 



14 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

standing erect and preserved as they grew. It is tradition that the 
source of overflow became filled by the tramping of cattle and 
animals, and by reason of which the water accumulated in a basin. 
It is now a popular summer resort. 

Montgomery County was formed in 1776 from Fincastle, and 
named for General Richard Montgomery. Part of our territory is 
thus derived from the Montgomery-Fincastle-Botetourt source, and 
the other part from the Greenbrier-Augusta route. 



CHAPTER II. 



FRAGMENTS OF ANCIENT HISTORY. 

The outposts of civilization moved west yearly, at an estimate 
of seventeen miles per year. New River was discovered in the year 
1670. In 1671, explorers spent considerable time in the valley of 
New River, but it is not known that they came as far west as West 
Virginia territory. In 1716, Governor Spotswood arrived at the 
summit of the Alleghenies, in Pendleton County. About 1748, the 
lands on Greenbrier River began to attract great attention, and a 
large grant of 100,000 acres was made to the Greenbrier Company 
in 1749. These lands, as well as that region, were surveyed by 
John Lewis, and settlements began to be made soon after, or within 
twenty years, and the frontiers extended to the Ohio River. 

It was in 1751 that Christopher Gist surveyed up Kanawha and 
New Rivers, and climbed to the top of the Hawk's Nest, known in 
history as "Marshall's Pillar." The great chief justice of the United 
States, John Marshall, for whom it was named, having climbed to 
the top of that picturesque rock. 

The French surveyed the Ohio River in 1749, but they made no 
settlements in the West Virginia territory, although they claimed 
dominion to the top of the Allegheny Mountains. In 1763, 
the King of England issued a proclamation forbidding any settle- 
ments west of the Allegheny Mountains, for the purpose of mol- 
lifying the Indians in that territory, but no attention was paid to 
this proclamation by the adventurous settlers. In 1765, the gov- 
ernor of Virginia ordered all settlers west of the Alleghenies to be 
removed from that territory by force. The territory of Monroe 
County was reclaimed from the wilderness fifteen years before the 
Revolutionary War. There were whites in Pocahontas County as 
early as 1749. There were two white settlers who settled at what 
is now known as Marlinton, at the mouth of Knapp's Creek, by 
the name of Stephen Sewell and Peter Marlin. These two gentle- 
men could not agree, and one of them moved into a large hollow 
tree. They would get out in the morning, raise their hats to each 



16 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



other, and each go about his business ; the associations not being 
pleasant, however, Sewell moved farther west into what is now 
Fayette County, and it was after him that the Sewell Mountain 
and Sewell Creek were named. He was finally killed by the Indians. 

Christopher Gist, in 1750, made an exploration for the Ohio 
Company west of New River, and, on his return, he passed through 
a part of the territory of what is now Summers County. He came 
through Pipestem District, down Bluestone River and up New 
River, and crossed it at Culbertson's Bottom, now known as 
Crump's or Harmon's Bottom. He went on east, and discovered 
a lake on the top of a high mountain three-fourths of a mile long 
by one-fourth of a mile wide ; no doubt Salt Pond, or now known 
as Mountain Lake, a famous summer resort on top of the Salt Pond 
Mountain in Giles County, Virginia. 

Col. Abraham Wood is supposed to have been the first white 
man to have entered the New River Valley, which was in 1654. He 
crossed the Alleghenies at a place in Floyd County, Virginia, known 
to this day as Wood's Gap, and passed down Little River to New 
River, and, supposing it to be a newly discovered stream, called it 
Wood's River, but it did not retain this name, and was at one time 
known as the "Kanawhy," after a tribe of Indians of that name, 
which at one time inhabited the New River Valley. This river 
did not appear on the map of Thomas JefTerson which he had 
engraved in France in 1755. 

The first settlement on New River was probably at the mouth 
of East River, by a man by the name of Porter; when, in 1748, John 
Toney came into that region, he found evidence of a former habi- 
tation — a cabin and a grave and stone with an engraving as follows 
thereon: "Mary Porter was killed by the Indians, May 28, 1742." 

It was on the second excursion of Dr. Walker across New 
River in southwest Virginia that coal deposits were discoi^ered by 
him. The Flat Top coal deposits, Culbertson's Bottom, the cele- 
brated Crump's Bottom, on which George W. Harman, Esq., now 
lives on New River, was settled by Andrew Culbertson in 1753. 
This is beyond question the first settlement within' any part of the 
territory of Summers County. Andrew Culbertson was from Penn- 
sylvania ; and, on the breaking out of the French and Indian W ar, 
he had to abandon this land, so he sold his claim to his brother, 
Samuel Culbertson, but a patent was not procured, and in 1775 
Thomas Farely had a survey made, and assigned his claim to 
Tames Byrnsides. 

Long litigation followed over the right of ownership between 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



17 



the Culbertsons, Reed and Byrnside. (See Wyth's Chancery Re- 
ports, 150.) 

Thos. Farley, one of the ancestors of the Farley generation, was 
from Albemarle County, -Virginia, and immediately, on locating on 
this land, built the Farley Fort on the bank of the river at lower 
end of the bottom at Warford. It was in the fort that James 
Ellison, whose father was from New Jersey, was born in May, 1778. 
The father of James Ellison was in the Battle of Point Pleasant, 
and, after his return home on Culbertson's Bottom, which was on 
October 19th, 1780, while at work in the corn crib, he was attacked 
by a party of seven or eight Indians, wounded in the shoulder and 
carried fifteen miles, escaping on the day of his capture over in 
what is now Jumping Branch District, by hiding under a cliff and 
wearing out the rawhide thongs which bound his hands by rubbing 
them on a rock. 

In 1774, a woman was killed on Culbertson's Bottom by In- 
dians, and a man by the name of Shockley on the mountain there, 
which has from that day been known as Shockley's Hill. 

The James Ellison referred to became an able missionary Bap- 
tist preacher and a pioneer in planting that church in all the region. 
It was he who established the Baptist Church at Oceana, in Wy- 
oming County in 1812, and he was the father of the late Mathew 
Ellison. 

Another fort was built at the mouth of Joshua Run on Culbert- 
son's Bottom on the breaking out of Dunsmore's War in 1774. 

It was General Braddock who sent Captain Thomas Lewis 
across the Alleghenies in 1755 to establish a stockade fort to enable 
the white settlers in the region to successfully defend themselves 
against the Indians. This was Field's Fort, built by orders of Gen. 
Braddock on Crump's Bottom. Braddock's defeat soon after left 
the whole of the West Virginia country open to the Indian ravages. 

Pitman, Pack and Swope were trappers and hunters on New 
River in 1763, when fifty Indians came up Big Sandy River, passed 
through Mercer County territory to New River, forming in two 
squads, one going for the Roanoke settlements, and the other to 
the Jackson River settlements, up Indian Creek. These trappers 
discovered^ them and<the route they had followed, and, divining 
their proposed destinations and that they would attack those set- 
tlements, Pitman set out to warn the Jackson River settlements, 
and Pack and Swope to warn the Roanoke people. This was 
Samuel Pack, the ancestor of our Pack generation, and Swope, 
the ancestor of our late fellow citizen, the attorney, J. J. Swope, 



18 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



formerly of Pineville, W. Va., and publisher of the Wyoming Moun- 
taineer newspaper. But the trappers were too late ; the Indians were 
ahead and had sacked the settlements, killing a number of people 
and taking others prisoners, after which they retreated to the Ohio 
country, pursued by Capt. Audley Paul, with a company of twenty 
men. They followed the Indians over Dunlap's Creek, down Indian 
Creek to its mouth, to New River, and on to the mouth of Piney, 
in Raleigh County, but failed to overtake them, so they proceeded 
to retrace their steps; and when they had proceeded on the return 
trip to the mouth of Indian Creek, a point opposite Culbertson's 
Bottom, opposite an island, on the night of October 12th, Capt. 
Paul at midnight discovered the Indians on the island at the mouth 
of the creek where C. A. Baber now lives. Paul's men fired on 
them, and killed three and wounded several others, one of whom 
jumped into the river to prevent Paul's men from taking his scalp. 
The remainder fled down the river. This was the squad which had 
attacked the Roanoke settlements and were being pursued by 
Capt. Wm. Ingles and Capt. Henry Harman from the upper New 
-River country. 

The fort at Lewisburg, known as Fort Union, was built in 1770. 

The Cooks settled on Indian Creek in 1769 or 1770, and John 
was killed by Indians at Cook's Fort on this creek some three miles 
from its mouth. 

The Grahams, Kellers, Hinchmans and Van Bibbers and others 
came on to the grounds about the same time. 

There is recorded another Indian killing at Culbertson's Bottom 
in 1774, and I take from Judge Johnston's "Middle New River 
Settlements" the account of the affair, the principal events of which 
were without the borders of our county. 

Philip Lybrook and a man by the name of McGrifT had built 
their colonies in a little bottom just below the mouth of Sinking 
Creek, on the farm lately known as that of Craft or Hall, and were 
engaged in the cultivation of a small crop of corn on the bottom 
lands. Mr. Lybrook had built a small mill on a branch. It was 
the custom in that day when people were few in the country, for 
young people to assemble or get together on Sunday, and it so 
happened that on the 7th day of August, 1774, that some of the 
children of Mrs. Elizabeth Snidow, with a woman by the 
name of Scott, went on a visit from the fort to Lybrooks and 
McGriffs. Lybrook was busy about his mill ; McGrifT was in the 
house, and the young people, and the smaller children were at the 
river. Two of the young men, Snidow and Lybrook, were out in 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 19 

the river some distance bathing, and three or four of the little boys 
were in the river near the bank, and a young woman, a daughter 
of Lybrook, was out in the river in a canoe with some of the 
smaller children therein, when an Indian was discovered on a high 
bank on the brink of the river. An alarm was given. The two 
young men in the river made for the opposite shore. The Indians, 
in the meantime, began to shoot at them. Being expert swimmers, 
they turned and swam on their backs, their faces being turned to 
the Indians, which enabled them to watch their movements. The 
four small boys playing in the edge of the river were, viz., Theop- 
hilus Snidow, Jacob Snidow, Thomas McGriff and John Lybrook. 
There were some deep gullies washed down through the banks 
of the river, by way of which wild animals had made their way to 
the river to get water. When the little boys discovered the Indians, 
they attempted to escape by way of these breaks in the banks, and, 
as they did so, the Indians would head them off. Finally one 
Indian stooped down and placed one hand on his knee as a rest 
for his gun, and attempted to shoot one of the young men in the 
river, and at this moment John Lybrook, a boy of eleven years, 
ran under the muzzle of the gun, and made for the house. So 
soon as the Indian fired he pursued John, and, coming to one of 
the gullies which had washed out about twelve feet wide, the 
Indian close after him, John leaped the gully, and the Indian, 
finding that he could not, threw his lariat at him, striking him on 
the back of the head, at the same time tumbling into the gully. 
By this time the two young men in the river had reached the 
opposite bank and were hidden behind the trees ; and, finding that 
John had safely crossed the gully, they cried out to him, "Run, John, 
run and John ran and safely reached the house. 

While this was transpiring, Miss Lybrook, who was standing 
in the rear end of the canoe, was pushing the same to the shore, 
when an Indian, who was hidden in the weeds on the bank of the 
river, came to the water's edge, and reached out as the canoe reached 
the bank and pulled the front end of it to the bank, and, stepping 
therein, with his war club began striking the little children over 
their heads and taking their scalps. The rear end of the canoe 
being down stream and having floated near to the bank, Miss 
Lybrook sprang out and started for the house, the Indian pursuing 
her. Her cries brought to her assistance a large dog, which seized 
the Indian and finally threw him, but the Indian succeeded in 
getting to his feet and striking the dog with his club, but in the 
meantime the young lady made her escape. While a part of the 



20 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Indians were on the bank of the river shooting at the young men in 
the river, capturing the boys and killing the children, a part of them 
had gone to the house. One shot Mr. Lybrook, breaking his arm; 
and Mr. McGrifT shot and mortally wounded one of the Indians, 
whose remains were years afterwards found under a cliff of rocks 
not far from the scene of the tragedy. Three of the little boys, 
Theophilus Snidow, Thomas McGrif and Jacob Snidow, were cap- 
tured by the Indians and carried away by them, and, after traveling 
with them a day or two, they formed a plan of escape, and that 
was to slip away at night. They reached Pipestem Knob, now in 
Summers County, and there camped for the night. During the 
night, and after all things were quiet, two of the boys, Thomas 
McGrifT and Jacob Snidow, slipped away from the camp, not being 
able to rouse the third boy without waking the Indians, and thus 
they were compelled to go away without him. After they had gone 
a few hundred yards from the camp, knowing they would be 
pursued, they crawled into a hollow log. In a few minutes after, 
the Indians discovering their absence, raised an alarm and went 
in search of the runaways, and even stood on the log in which the 
boys were hid, and in broken English called, "Come back. Get lost." 
Not being able to find the boys, they gave up the hunt and returned 
to camp. So soon as everything was quiet, the boys came out of 
their hiding-place, struck through the woods, and came to Crump's 
Bottoms on New River, where they were afterwards found by some 
of the scouts from the settlement, and who were in pursuit of 
the Indians. 

In this attack Philip Lybrook was wounded, three of his chil- 
dren and a young woman by the name of Scott, two of the children, 
small girls, of Mrs. Snidow's, were killed, and three boys captured. 
The two young men who were in the river when the attack began, 
and who had reached the farther bank, ran across the ridge to the 
Gunpowder Spring, Harman's Fort, and halloed across the river 
at the people in the fort to bring a canoe and take them over, but 
the people, being afraid they were Indians, refused to go. After 
waiting for some time, the young men being afraid of pursuit by 
the Indians, plunged into the river, and a young woman, seeing 
this, insisted that they were white men, and ran to the river, jumped 
into a canoe, and pushed into the river to meet the swimmers. She 
was just in time to save one of them from sinking the third time, 
and who, no doubt, had taken the cramp by reason of the exertion 
and overheating in his run over the ridges. She carried them safely 
to the fort. There were six Indians in this raid. They were pur- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 21 

sued by Capt. Clendennin, but never overtaken. Mrs. Rebecca 
Pack, now of Burden, Kansas, and the widow of Anderson Pack 
of this county, is a descendant of these Snidows, and there are 
numerous other descendants in Giles and other counties. Theoph- 
ilus Snidow, the other captive, was carried down New River, across 
the Ohio, and, after he had grown to manhood, returned to his 
people. This Mrs. Snidow was a widow, her husband having died 
suddenly while emigrating to the Upper New River country. 

The Clover Bottoms, on Bluestone River in Mercer County, 
near the Summers line, was granted by Lord Dunsmore on the 
5th day of April, 1774, to Mitchell Clay, assignee of John Draper. 
There are many of his descendants now in Wyoming and Raleigh, 
and recently two of the Clay families of Wyoming purchased the 
Maddy lands on Lick Creek and removed into that community 
near Green Sulphur Springs. This tract was then and is still known 
as Clover Bottoms, and was owned for many years by Benjamin 
Peck, the father of Messrs. C. L. Peck, Pembroke P. Peck and 
E. H. Peck, of this county, and was inherited by them. The grantee 
was required to take possession within three years from its date. 
Mitchell Clay was a native of Franklin County, Virginia, and he 
gave John Draper a negro woman and her children for the land, 
which is very fertile and valuable. The land warrant or script to 
Draper for this land was for services by him in the French and 
Indian War. Mitchell Clay settled in this bottom in 1775. This 
was the second white settler in Mercer County territory and the 
first in its present territory. The settlement on Culbertson's Bot- 
toms (now Crump's) having been made by Andrew Culbertson 
twenty-seven years before, so the first settlement in Mercer County 
by white men was in territory now a part of Summers. 

Clay was not molested by the Indians on "Clover Bottoms" 
for eight years, but was finally attacked by them and a part of 
his family killed. 

SOME OLD LAWS. 

If a person unlawfully kill a hog or steal one not his own, he 
should pay a fine of 1,000 pounds of tobacco; and, if unable to do 
so, he was required to work one year for the informer and one year 
for the owner of the property. No person could get married except 
by a minister of England, and then on a license from the governor. 
Any minister doing so was fined 10,000 pounds of tobacco. 

All persons keeping tippling houses without a license were 



22 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

fined 2,000 pounds of tobacco, one-half to go to the informer and the 
other to. the county. 

The court in every county shall cause to be set up a pillory, 
a pair of stocks, a whipping post and a ducking stool in a conve- 
nient place, and, if not done, the court was fined 5,000 pounds of 
tobacco. 

In actions for slander occasioned by the wife, after judgment 
for damages, the woman shall be punished by ducking, and an 
additional ducking for every 500 pounds of tobacco fine imposed 
against her husband if he refused to pay. 

The Lord's Day was to be kept holy, and no journey made on 
that day unless necessary, and everybody who were inhabitants 
were required to attend church at some parish church or chapel, 
and then abide orderly during preaching, or be fined fifty pounds of 
tobacco. Every Quaker who congregated in unlawful places was 
liable to a fine of 200 pounds of tobacco for every such meeting. 

All preachers of the Church of England officiating and six of 
his family were exempt from taxes. 

If any Quakers over sixteen years of age assemble, five in 
number, for the pretense of joining in a religious worship, were 
liable to a fine of 200 pounds of tobacco for each offense. 

Any master of a ship who shall bring into the colony any 
Quaker to reside hereafter, 1st July, 1663, shall be fined 5,000 pounds 
of tobacco, and every person inhabiting the country who shall en- 
tertain in or near his house a Quaker to teach or preach, shall be 
fined 5,000 pounds of tobacco. 

If any person be found laboring, drinking, gaming or working 
on the 27th day of August, upon presentment by the church warden, 
shall be fined 100 pounds of tobacco, one-half to the informer and 
one-half to the parish. 

None but freeholders or housekeepers shall have any voice in 
the election of burgesses, and every county not sending two bur- 
gesses to the General Assembly shall be fined 10,000 pounds of 
tobacco, for the use of the public. 

Every member of the House of Burgesses shall be allowed 150 
pounds of tobacco for each day, beginning two days before each 
Assembly, and continuing for two days after; and for traveling 
expenses, those that come by land, ten pounds of tobacco for each 
day for each horse used and for water transportation proportion- 
ately. 

1679. For hog stealing, first offense, according to former laws ; 
for the second offense the offender shall stand two hours in the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



23 



pillory and lose his ears ; and for the third offense he shall be tried 
by the laws of England for a felony. 

1680. No licensed attorney shall demand or receive for bring- 
ing any cause to judgment in the general court more than fifty 
pounds of tobacco and cask; and in the county court, 150 pounds of 
tobacco and cask, which fees are allowed without any prejudgment. 

If any attorney shall refuse to plead any cause in respective 
courts aforesaid, for the aforesaid fees, he shall forfeit as much as 
his fees should have been. 

Every person who failed to have his child baptized by a lawful 
minister was liable to a fine of 2,000 pounds of tobacco, one-half to 
go to the parish and the other to the informer. 

These laws and many similar ones once applied to our terri- 
tory, but before it was settled by the white man. 

In 1621 "sixty young and handsome maidens" were sent to 
Virginia, each with a recommendation and testimonial. They 
were to be purchased by an equal number of the boys who were 
sent to become apprentices. It was stipulated that these maidens 
should be married with their own consent, and to such free men 
only as could support them. It was also stipulated that they were 
to be well used, and they were forbidden from marrying servants. 
The land owners granted to those who subscribed to the costs of 
shipping the maidens and boys a rateable proportion of land, all to 
be laid off together and form a town to be called Maidtown. The 
price of the wives was fixed at 100 pounds of tobacco, and after- 
wards advanced to 150 pounds, and proportionately more if any 
of them should happen to die in the passage to Virginia. A debtor 
for a wife was of higher dignity than other debtors, and would be 
paid first. As an inducement to marriage, married men were pre- 
ferred in the selection of officers for the colony. Contentment 
followed this introduction of wives into Virginia, and soon there- 
after whole families, including wives, daughters and sons, came, 
and the necessity for shipping maids no longer existed, and the 
seeker for a wife no longer lugged his tobacco crop to the matri- 
monial market, but, instead, resorted to the customs of his fore- 
fathers, and which followed with our forefathers across the moun- 
tains, who planned a siege of the old-fashioned courtship in the 
old-fashioned manner to win his partner for life. 

In the pioneer days of this region, when any of the forefathers 
married, the marriage ceremony was followed by the wedding 
dinner and then dancing, which consisted of the four-handed reel, 
square sets and jigs. The commencement was always a "square 



24 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



four," followed by what was called ''jigging it off"; that is, two 
or four would single out for a jig, followed by the remaining 
couples. Among the old-time tunes were "Little Breeches," "Will 
You Come Out To-night?" "The Devil's Dream," "Mississippi 
Sawyer," Arkansas Traveler" and "Clear the Track." These after- 
marriage dances always brought out big crowds. As soon as the 
wedding was over, a house was built for the newly married couple 
on the lands of either the bride's or bridegroom's parents, and when 
it was ready for occupancy, the friends and neighbors who as- 
sisted in its building were invited to what was called the "house 
warming," consisting of a dinner and dances. 

The seat of government for all this region was Jamestown in 
1607 until 1698, after which it was removed to Williamsburg. 
When the town of Jamestown was settled, the only other places 
in the United States settled by white people were St. Augustine, 
Florida, and Santa Fe, New Mexico, settled in 1582. St. Augustine 
was founded in 1655. 

We are within the territory where the white man first exercised 
the right of suffrage in the new world, and where a trial by jury was 
first granted. 

The first free school on this continent was started within the 
same territory, and our territory is within the domain which has 
produced more illustrious men of America than any other within 
the nation. 

At one time and at the opening of the seventeenth century, our 
territory was in the country governed under conditions existing to 
a large extent in ancient Europe. Women were dragged about in 
public or ducked in ponds or rivers because they scolded; men 
were imprisoned for debts which they could not pay, or condemned 
to death for their refusal or neglect to profess a religion in which 
they did not believe. Hell's fire was constantly kept in the mind's 
view of young and old, while the pure love of God and of man 
were trampled into the mire by superstitious teachers and preach- 
ers. Insane men were believed to be possessed of devils, and were 
chained to the floor in the garrets. Stocks for punishment were in 
evidence wherever courts of law were held, and men were nailed 
to these instruments of torture within the public gaze to add to 
their punishment by becoming the laughing stock of the people. 
Men's ears were cropped from their heads, thereby fastening upon 
them marks of disgrace which they carried with them to their 
graves. Such punishments were inflicted for alleged offenses 
which at the present day are so trivial that no provision of law is 
deemed necessary for their prevention. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 25 



FIRST DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE. 

The first Declaration of Independence proclaimed in America 
was on the 20th of January, 1775, by the representatives of Fin- 
castle County, of which Summers territory, a part, if not all, is a 
part. It was eighteen months prior to the famous Declaration of July 
4, 1776, and it is full of the independence then breathed throughout 
the country, and we give the declaration of the Fincastle men in 
full. While it breathes the spirit of independence, it is respectful, 
without supplication in its terms. 

"In obedience to the resolves of the Continental Congress, a 
meeting of the freeholders of Fincastle County in Virginia was 
held on the 20th day of January, 1775, and who, after approving 
the association formed by that august body in behalf of all the 
colonies, and subscribing thereto, proceeds to the election of a 
committee to see the same carried punctually into execution, when 
the following men were nominated : 

"Rev. Charles Cummings, Col. Wm. Preston, Col. Wm. Chris- 
tian, Steven Trigg, Major Arthur Campbell, Major Wm. Ingles, 
Captain Walter Crockett, Capt. John Montgomery, Capt. James 
McGavoch, Capt. William Campbell, Capt. Thomas Madison, Capt. 
Evan Shelby and Lieutenant William Edmondson. Colonel Wil- 
liam Christian was made chairman, and David Campbell, clerk. 

"Their declaration is as follows : 

"To the Honorable Peyton Randolph, Esquire, Richard Henry 
Lee, George Washington, Patrick Henry, Junior, Richard Bland, 
Benjamin Harrison and Edmund Pendleton, Esquires, the delegates 
from this colony who attended the Continental Congress had at 
Philadelphia. Gentlemen : Had it not been for our remote situ- 
ation and the Indian War which we were engaged in to chastise 
these cruel and savage people for the many murders and depreda- 
tions they have committed amongst us, now happily terminated 
under the auspices of our present worthy Governor, His Excellency, 
The Right Honorable Earl Dunmore, we should before this time 
have made known to you our thankfulness for the very important 
services you have rendered to our country in conjunction with the 
worthy delegates from other provinces. Your noble efforts for 
reconciling the mother country and colonies on rational and con- 
stitutional principles and your pacific, steady and uniform conduct 
in that arduous work immortalize you in the annals of your country. 
We heartily concur in your resolutions, and shall in every instance 
strictly and invariably adhere thereto. 



26 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



"We assure you, gentlemen, and all our countrymen, that we 
are a people whose hearts overflow with love and duty to our 
lawful sovereign, George the Third, whose illustrious house for 
several successive reigns has been the guardian of the civil and 
religious rights and liberties of British subjects as settled at the 
glorious Revolution ; that we are willing to risk our lives in the 
service of His Majesty for the support of the Protestant religion 
and the rights and liberties'of his subjects as they have been estab- 
lished by the compact law and ancient charters. We are heartily 
disturbed at the differences which now subsist between the parent 
state and the colonies, and most urgently wish to see harmony 
restored on an equitable basis and by the most lenient measures 
that can be devised by the heart of man. Many of us and our fore- 
fathers left our native land, considering it as a kingdom subjected 
to inordinate power. We crossed the Atlantic and explored this 
then wilderness, and surrounded by mountains almost inaccessible 
to any but those various savages who have insistently been com- 
mitting depredations on us since our first settling in the country. 
These fatigues and dangers were patiently endured, supported by 
the pleasing hope of enjoying these rights and liberties which had 
been granted to Virginians and denied us in our native country, 
and of transmitting them inviolate to our posterity ; but even to 
this remote region the hand of enmity and unconstitutional power 
hath preceded us to strip us of that liberty and property with which 
God, nature and the rights of humanity have visited us. W e are 
ready and willing to contribute all in our power for His Majesty's 
government if applied considerately and when grants are made by 
our own representatives, but can not think of submitting our liberty 
or property to the power of a venal British Government or the will 
of a greedy ministry. We by no means desire to shake off our 
duty or allegiance to our lawful sovereign, but, on the contrary, 
shall ever glory in being the loyal subjects of the Protestant prince 
descended from such illustrious progenitors, so long as we can 
enjoy the free exercise of our religion as Protestants and our lib- 
erties and properties as British subjects; but no pacific measures 
shall be proposed or adopted by Great Britain, and our enemies 
will attempt to dragoon us out of these inestimable privileges which 
we are entitled to as subjects and to reduce us to a state of slavery; 
we declare that we are deliberately determined never to surrender 
them to any power upon earth but at the expense of our lives. 

"These are real, though unpolished, sentiments of liberty, and in 
them we are resolved to live or die. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 



27 



"We are, gentlemen, with the most perfect esteem and regard, 
your most obedient servants." (See American Archives, 1st Vol., 
page 166, 4th Series. Johnston's New River Settlements). 

The territory of Summers County, then Fincastle County, was 
represented in the convention which formed and adopted the first 
Republican Constitution ever adopted in America, which assembled 
in Williamsburg, Va., in 1775. Arthur Campbell and William Rus- 
sell were the representatives. The delegate from Fincastle County 
in 1776, when it was abolished, was Col. Wm. Christian. 

There were then sparse settlements in our territory, then in- 
cluded in Fincastle County ; among them the Grahams, Kellers, 
Ferrells, Slaters, Culbertsons, Cooks, Farleys and Gwinns 
located in this section. In October, 1776, the county of Fincastle, 
like Poland, was parceled out into three counties, and it ceased to 
exist, and out of its territory Washington, Kentucky and Mont- 
gomery Counties were created, and a portion of the territory of 
this county came within the jurisdiction of Montgomery. 

The representatives from Fincastle County who met at the Wil- 
liamsburg Convention, which adopted the first Republican Con- 
stitution, were Arthur Campbell and W T illiam Russell. 

Fincastle County was named for one of the castles of the Royal 
Governor, Lord Dunmore, "Finn Castle," and the distaste among 
the colonies for Dunmore had become so great and just that the 
name was eliminated from the political divisions. Dunmore County 
was, also, for a like cause, abolished, and the name changed to 
Shenandoah. 

The outrages by the Indians about 1777 were very numerous 
against the white settlers in all this section of the country, and the 
people were obliged to gather into the forts, where they were com- 
pelled to remain during the whole of the summer. From Barger's 
Fort on the upper New River on Tom's Creek, to Fort Donnally 
and Union in the Greenbrier country, the men, women and children 
fled to the forts. Fields on Crump's Bottoms and Cook's on Indian 
Creek, were filled with the settlers in that region, as was the fort 
below Alderson. Scouts under Capt. John Lucas penetrated the 
region round about Cook's and Field's, on Crump's Bottoms and 
Indian Creek, as well as Farley's Fort, five miles below Fields at 
the lower end of the bottom. 

We give some account of the attack of the Indians on Fort 
Donnally, ten miles west of Lewisburg towards the Muddy Creek 
country, as it was in the region of a part of our territory for many 



28 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



years, and was under the jurisdiction of Greenbrier County after 
its formation in 1777. 

Two scouts informed the settlements of the danger apprehended 
from a band of marauding Indians from west of the Ohio, who 
advanced up the Kanawha, across the War Ridge and into the 
Greenbrier country. 

After being advised by the scouts the settlers gathered into the 
fort, consisting of twenty men. Capt. Donnally sent a messenger 
to Fort Union to Col. John Stuart, advising him of the advance of 
the Indians (Injuns). The best arrangements possible to resist 
an attack were made, and the attack began the next morning early. 
Col. Stuart had sent Col. Sam Lewis with sixty men to the relief 
of Donnally, and they entered the fort without damage. Four 
whites were killed in this attack — Pritcher, James Burns, Alex. 
Ochiltree and James Graham, who was killed in the fort, the other 
three being killed outside. The Grahams of Summers County are 
direct kin of this Indian fighter. Seventeen of the Indians were 
killed in the yard outside of the fort, who remained lying on the 
ground. Other slain Indians were carried off by the survivors. 
There were engaged in this fight more than two hundred Indians, 
and in all eighty-seven whites. The Indians, failing, retreated. 
During the Indian attack on Donnally's Fort a number of men 
gathered in at Jarrett's Fort on Wolf Creek and Keeney's Fort, 
a number of whom were members of Captain Joseph Renfrew's 
company who were from Bedford County, Virginia, and among 
them was Josiah Aleadows, the ancestor of A. G. Meadows, assis- 
tant postmaster at Hinton, and James E. Aleadows, present mayor 
of Avis, and of J. M. Aleador, clerk of the County Court of Summers 
County. Josiah Aleadows applied for a pension to the County 
Court of Giles County in 1832. In his application he gives a full 
account of his Indian warfare. This Josiah Aleadows was a great- 
grandfather of Hon. I. G. Aleador, of Athens, Alercer County, West 
Virginia. He was with the expedition of George Rogers Clark into 
the Illinois country in 1778. 

Mrs. Margaret Pauley, with her husband, John Pauley, and James 
Pauley, wife and child; Robert Wallace and wife, and Brice Aliller, 
on September 23, 1779, set out from the Greenbrier region to go to 
Kentucky. They crossed New River at the horse ford near the 
mouth of Rich Creek, then went down New River by the nearest 
route to Cumberland Gap. Each man in the party was armed with 
a rifle. The women were on horseback, on which they carried all 
their household plunder. They were in front and the men in the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 29 

rear, driving the cattle. About noon, after they had arrived at a 
point on East River one mile below the mouth of Five Mile Fork, 
they were attacked by five Indians and a white man by the name 
of Morgan. The women were knocked from their horses by the 
Indians with their clubs ; W allace and his two children killed and 
scalped. John Pauley was fatally wounded, but escaped to Wood's 
Fort on Rich Creek, where he shortly afterwards died. Mrs. James 
and John Pauley were taken prisoners and carried to the Indian 
town on the Miami River, where they remained prisoners for two 
years. Shortly after they arrived Margaret Pauley gave birth to a 
son. Mrs. James Pauley made her escape and Margaret and her 
child were ransomed. Margaret Pauley's name was Handley. After 
she returned she married a man by the name of Erskine, and by 
whom she had a daughter who married Hugh Caperton, who was 
a distinguished gentleman and who was the father of Allen T. 
Caperton, of Monroe County, the United States Senator from West 
Virginia at the date of his death. Adam Caperton, the father of 
Hugh Caperton, was killed at Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, by the In- 
dians at the battle of Little Mountain. Samuel Richmond, who lived 
at New River Falls, married Sallie Caperton, a descendant of Adam 
Caperton. A full account of this killing of Pauley and capture 
was dictated by Margaret Pauley many years afterwards to Senator 
Allen T. Caperton, and the full history as so written will be found 
in Lewis' History of West Virginia. 

Capt. Hugh Caperton, the father of Sallie Richmond, lived on 
New River, and was an uncle of Hugh Caperton, of Monroe County. 
Capt. Caperton was ordered to form a company of men from the 
New River Company to fight the Indian marauders and prowling 
bands who were active in the country in 1793. He marched and 
camped at the mouth of Elk. Overton Caperton resided at the 
mouth of Island Creek in Summers County, where he owned a 
valuable farm. He fell in a deep culvert on the C. & O. Railroad 
and killed himself, a few years ago, between Avis and Hinton. 
He left a son, Adam, who resides now in Mercer County. Another 
descendant of Capt. Hugh Caperton is Allen Caperton, of Princeton, 
having been postmaster of that town, and is a prominent capitalist. 
Daniel Boone was the "commissary" of that company referred to 
of Capt. Hugh Caperton, and there were but few settlers in the 
Kanawha — among them Leonard Morriss — whose descendants still 
live in that valley. Leonard Morriss, a descendant, is an aged man, 
now eighty-seven years old, but strong mentally. He remembers 
seeing the Indians passing up the valley on their way to see the 



30 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



President. He tells many interesting incidents to the writer, of 
these aborigines. He says they still carried the bow and arrow, 
but that their arrows had no stone points. He visited Barger's 
Springs in 1907. 

Some of the men who belonged to this company of Caperton's 
Indian fighters, whose descendants live in this region, are : Edward 
Farley, John Cook, William Graham, Francis Farley, Drewry Far- 
ley, John Barton, Thomas Cook, Mathew Farley, David Johnston, 
James Stuart, James Abbott, Joseph Abbott, Moses Massey, James 
Graham, David Graham, James Sweeney and Isaiah Calloway. 
This company was disbanded after General Wayne's victory at 
Fallen Timbers. 

The Christian family came from the Isfe of Man, settling in 
Pennsylvania, where they lived in 1726, whence Gilbert Christian 
came to where Staunton now stands. He had a family of three 
sons, John, Robert and William, and one daughter, Mary. Capt. 
Israel Christian settled in the valley, and removed into the territory 
of Botetourt County in 1740 at Fincastle. He gave the site for that 
town. Later he crossed the Allegheny Mountains and settled on 
New River at Ingle's Ferry. Christiansburg was named for him. 
Colonel William Christian was his son, and married a sister of 
Patrick Henry — Anne. He was a prominent man and was once a 
member of the State Senate of Virginia in 1781, and commanded a 
regiment at the Battle of Point Pleasant in 1774. He was killed 
while fighting the Indians in Ohio in 1786 at Jeffersonville, 
in Indiana. Joseph J. Christian, of the upper end of this county, 
is a direct descendant of Col. Israel Christian. 



CHAPTER III. 



ABORIGINAL AND ANCIENT. 

In regard to the inhabitants of this territory immediately pre- 
ceding the English settlers, we are unable to get any definite 
information as to what particular tribes resided here, or whether 
there were any regular inhabitants of these mountain regions at all 
we do not know; but there is plenty of information on the subject, 
especially of a circumstantial character, showing that this region 
had been inhabited. When I say regular inhabitants, I mean 
whether or not there were any villages of encampments of Indians, 
or whether they ever cultivated any of the soil in what is the ter- 
ritory of the county. Of course, they hunted over these mountains, 
fished in our streams, traveled through our valleys and territories. 
The so-called Indian Mounds and Indian relics in the shape of 
arrow points, spear points, stone hammers, axes, tomahawks, pot- 
tery, etc., were found in abundance along the rivers and in the 
mountains of this region, were not, in the opinion of scientists, 
made by the Indians. There is positive evidence to show that the 
first inhabitants of the Mississippi Valley and of the Apalachian 
region and the Atlantic Coast came from the south. They may have 
crossed the Continent of Atlantis, which once existed where the 
Atlantic Ocean now is, from Southern Europe, and Southern Asia 
to South America and Mexico, and from thence into the Mississippi 
Valley and the mountains on either side. The Incas of Peru, the 
Aztecs and Toltecs of Mexico, the Mound Builders of the Missis- 
sippi Valley had many similar customs and left somewhat similar 
remains. They were all descendants of these people who came from 
Southern Asia, perhaps in the time of Abraham. The modern 
Indians probably came from Northern Asia and crossed Behring 
Strait. Those who wandered towards the North became small in 
stature and acquired the characters of the modern Esquimo. Those 
who came farther north probably drove out the Mound Builder 
after much fighting, and took possession of the country. The 
Mound Builders went south, and, possibly, the Zuni Indians of 
to-day are their degenerate descendants. 



32 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The Mound Builders had no iron instruments nor any sub- 
stitute, and could not contend against the growth of timber 
the country was completely covered with. They, possibly cul- 
tivated the soil. The more substantial theory, in my opinion, is 
that the Mound Builders were driven out after a desperate fight 
with the Indians, who, like the Goths and the Vandals of Europe, 
descended on the Roman people. This is the opinion of Dr. G. D. 
Lind, of New Richmond, in this county, a learned physician, and 
who has given these subjects very intelligent study, and to whom 
I am indebted for an opinion. There are no mounds or evidence 
of monuments built by the Mound Builders in the territory of this 
county. We have, however, numerous small mounds, known as 
Indian graves, scattered throughout the county in the valleys ; and, 
while there were no Indian settlements within the territory between 
the Allegheny Mountains and the Ohio when the country was first 
visited by civilized man, there are ample evidences at this day of 
the territory of this country having at an early day been inhabited 
- by the Indian savages in considerable numbers, but we doubt if 
the Indians ever used the flints or arrow heads. People who re- 
member seeing them with their bows and arrows say they did not 
have such heads to their arrows, but that the arrow was one piece 
of wood. The Hurons are supposed by some to have possessed 
this territory, but the white man did not dispossess this region of 
the Indians. It had been depopulated of Indian settlements before 
the white man entered. 

The true, very ancient history of this land has never been writ- 
ten ; and, if it is ever done, it will be from geological research, and 
not from ordinary historical sources. It is more ancient than any 
historical records that exist of any times. 

This territory was probably first inhabited by the Mound Build- 
ers, then by the Indians, one tribe after another, and then by the 
Europeans, following the Jamestown Settlement by Capt. John 
Smith in 1607. 

The Indians are a remarkable race of people. Their contrasts- 
of character and the make-up of their mental characteristics are 
unfathomable — sometimes very rare and exceptional. You read 
of one of these savage people with human sympathy and instincts, 
but in the great and preponderating number of cases they have the' 
savage character and characteristics. This seems to have been 
intensified as time passed after the first intermingling between 
them and the white races of Europe. 

Immediately after the discovery of America, we read that in 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



33 



the early associations there were many examples of humanity and 
of human kindness emanating from a human brain. A disposition 
to return kindness for kindness, as do some of the domestic animals, 
but the avariciousness of the first discoverers and explorers of the 
American continent, especially of the Spaniards, even though under 
the guise of the Christian spirit; but with treachery so instilled into 
the minds of the Indian savage an internal hatred, it grew and hard- 
ened and expanded as the generations passed ; and, as generation 
after generation followed, their cruelty was instilled into and became 
a part of their nature, one of inheritance. To hate the white race, 
from whence or where he came, or for whatever his purpose might 
be, so that from the first generation to the present there has been 
no relaxation in the disposition of the race to inflict on all the 
whites all of the barbarities to be imagined by human ingenuity; 
and when we now read of and learn by tradition and history of the 
brutal savagery of these treacherous inhabitants who occupied all 
of this country, we may well believe the hardships endured by the 
original and pioneer settlers of all this region from an ever-present 
savage foe, hating and despising all progress advanced by the 
whites with whom they came in contact. It matters not how gen- 
erous the disposition of the exceptional white may have been — 
whether his advancements into the wilderness into the West were 
for civilization or Christian purposes — the Indian knew no mercy, 
pity, magnanimity. They were words unknown in his nature, and 
the doctrines of mercy, pity, magnanimity and Christian forbear- 
ance became unknown entirely to the Indian character. This, no 
doubt, grew largely from the action and brutal treatment in many 
instances of the white adventurer, whose only object was to secure 
pecuniary advantage; so that, as time passed, the natures of both 
races, the white and the red, became actions of retaliation, so that 
the white settler, like Jim Wiley, who could cut a razor strap out 
of the hide of an Indian with as little qualms as out of the hide 
- of an ox. 

The Spanish robbed and slaughtered them by the sword ; the 
English robbed and murdered them under the guise of a pretense 
at commercialism, trading with them, dealing for their furs, and 
throwing in civilization, Christianity and whiskey; the French 
seemed to have been more generous in their treatment with the 
Indians than any other white European race, and for that reason 
their diplomatic relations with them were more friendly, and they 
received more results and benefits from the coalitions than any 
other nation undertaking to colonize or civilize the continent. 



34 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The Indians had no written laws. Their customs were handed 
down from generation to generation and from age to age by the 
old men, and had all the force of well-denned and positive statutes, 
more so than the "common law." The aborigines of this country 
enjoyed absolute freedom. Their sachems made their own tools 
for war and husbandry. They worked the grounds in common 
with other tribes. They entered into no great war or scheme with- 
out the consent of the whole people or movement of a public nature. 
If their council declared in favor of war, their warriors declared 
their approbation by painting themselves with various colors, rend- 
ering themselves horrid in the extreme to their enemies. In this 
shape they would rush furiously into the council and begin the 
war dance, accompanying their steps with fierce gestures expres- 
sive of their thirst for vengeance, and describing the manner in 
which they would wound, kill and scalp their victims ; after which 
they would sing their own glories, exploit the glories of their an- 
cestors and of the nation in the ancient times. Their festivals 
consisted of dancing around in a circle of curved posts or a fire 
built in a convenient part of the town, each having his rattle in his 
hand, or his bow and arrow or tomahawk. They dressed themselves 
in branches of trees or other strange accoutrement. They had no 
idea of distinct or exclusive property. Every man could cultivate 
and abandon whatever land he pleased. They reckoned their years 
by the coming and going of the wild geese — "cohunks" they called 
them — a noise made by these birds. This coming was once a year. 
They distinguished the parts of the year by five seasons, viz. : 
The budding or blossoming of the spring; the earing of the corn, 
or roasting-ear time ; the summer, or high sun ; the corn gathering, 
or fall of the leaf ; and the winter, or the "cohunks." They counted 
the months by the moons, though not with so many in the year 
as we do, but they made them return again as the Corn Moon, the 
First and the Second Moon of Cohunks. They had no distinctions 
of the hour of the day, but divided them into three parts — the rise, 
power and lowering of the sun. They kept their accounts by 
knots on strings, or notches on sticks. 

They were grossly superstitious and idolatrous. He was the 
most improvident animal existing; his present necessities satisfied, 
and he was happy. He wasted no thought on the morrow. 

A man could have as many wives as he could support. He 
could abandon one and seek another when he pleased, and the 
wife could do the same, except she could have but one husband at 
a time, and she could not marry for a year after separation. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



35 



Courtship, like marriage, was short. If the squaw accepted the 
presents of the man, it was understood she agreed ; and, without 
further ceremony, she went and joined him in his hut, not even 
notifying her people. The principles which were to regulate their 
future conduct were well understood. He was to assume the more 
laborious labor — fighting the enemies of his tribe, hunting, fishing, 
felling the trees and building the hut. She looked after raising 
the children, providing food and domestic duties. It was her duty 
to plant the corn and do all the agricultural work, as well as trans- 
port on her back the children (papooses), but the labor of agricul- 
ture was trifling. In the event of separation, the children all be- 
longed to the women. The warrior was considered a visitor, and, if 
any differences arose, the warrior picked up his gun and walked 
off, and that ended it. This separation entailed no quarrel or 
disgrace. They acted according to the dictates of nature and the 
customs of their country. Every object inspired happiness and 
content, and their only care was to crowd as much pleasure as 
possible into a short life. They were a rawboned, muscular, red- 
skinned people, with high cheek bones ; with a bow and arrow for 
their weapons until the whites introduced firearms. 

The territory of which Summers County is included was origi- 
nally a howling wilderness, inhabited, no doubt, by the ancient 
Indian tribes, and there are many evidences yet remaining in some 
parts of the county of the habitations of these people. After the 
Mound Builders the county was inhabited by Indians, supposed 
to be a tribe, a section, or part of the powerful confederacy known 
as the Six Nations. There are yet remaining in different localities 
many evidences of the ancient habitations — flints, arrow-heads, 
stone tomahawks and other stone implements are found scattered 
on and under the surface, and are plowed up from beneath the 
surface in the cultivation of the soil. 

At the time West Virginia first became known to civilized 
people there were no Indian settlements of any importance within 
its territory which were in actual possession by any tribe or nation 
of Indians, but there is evidence everywhere that Indians in great 
numbers had occupied this territory. 

Two years ago I was presented with a stone pipe, all of one 
solid piece, nicely finished, the bowl nicely hollowed out, with the 
stem about three inches long, by J. Frank Smith, who had found 
the same m his explorations for mineral on Suck Creek, a tributary 
of Little Blue Stone River in Jumping Branch District, evidently 
of very ancient make, but complete in all its parts. Mr. Allen 



36 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Bragg, several years ago, presented us with a piece of ancient clay 
utensil of some character impossible to determine, but very nicely 
finished, either a part of an ornament, or of some useful utensil, 
being of oval and pointed shape at the top, or in the shape of a 
half-crown with pointed top. 

Some four or five years ago an extraordinary flood of New 
River occurred. The river banks were overflowed west of the 
Warford in New River, and along "Barker's Bottom," and many 
evidences of ancient habitations were washed up from the earth, 
including skulls, stone implements, human bones, etc. One im- 
plement of a peculiar make, made from very hard stone an inch and 
a half thick, perfectly finished, as large as the hollow of a man's 
hand, was presented to the writer, and of which I now have pos- 
session. But there is no tradition of Indian or other habitation in 
this region since the early settlements east of the Allegheny 
Mountains. 

There is authentic history of Indian excursions through the 
territory of the county, and there were three great war trails of 
. the Indians, which were followed by them in their excursions 
from west of the Ohio River into Western Virginia, after the 
Indians had been forced west of that stream. One was up the 
Great Kanawha River, across the Sewell Mountain, up Lick Creek, 
and across the Keeney's Knob, down Griffith's Creek to Greenbrier 
River, near where the town of Alderson is now located. Another 
trail was up the Big Sandy River, down Bluestone; thence across 
to East River and down Bluestone up New River and Indian Creek 
and through Monroe County. The third was up the Little Kana- 
wha River. 

LAST INDIAN EXCURSIONS. 

The last Indian excursion of which I have any information 
through this territory was of a party of Indians from west of the 
Ohio, who proceeded into the Greenbrier country, attacking Capt. 
McClung and his settlement on Muddy Creek; thence passing over 
the Keeney's Knob, after having captured a Mrs. Clendennin. The 
prisoners were all taken over to Muddy Creek, and a number of 
the Indians retained them there until the return of the others from 
Carr's Creek. On the day they started from the foot of Keeney's 
Knob, going over the mountain, Mrs. Clendennin gave her infant 
child to a prisoner woman to carry, as the prisoners were in the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



37 



center of the line and the Indians in the front and rear, she escaped 
into a thicket and concealed herself until they passed by. The 
cries of the child soon caused the Indians to inquire for the mother, 
who was missing, and one of them said he "would soon bring the 
cow to her calf," and, taking the child by the heels, he beat its 
brains out against a tree, and, throwing the body down into the 
path, all marched over it until its entrails were trampled out by 
the horses. 

She returned that night in the dark to her house, a distance of 
more than ten miles, and covered her husband's corpse with rails, 
which lay in the yard where he was killed in endeavoring to escape 
over the fence with one of his children in his arms. This occur- 
rence is taken from the memorandum of Col. John Stuart, of Green- 
brier County, made 1798, who was then clerk of the county, and 
made this memorandum in one of his deed books. The Indian 
warfare at this time resulted in the entire destruction of the set- 
tlers in the Greenbrier Valley and within what is now Greenbrier 
and Summers Counties, which was in the year 1780. 

Their last excursion was into the Greenbrier region in this 
county, in which they killed Thomas Griffith near the mouth of 
Griffith's Creek, which empties into the Greenbrier River about a 
mile west of the town of Alderson, and whose name said creek 
still bears, which was in the year 1780. At the same time they 

captured Griffith, his son, and immediately started for 

the West, pursued by a party of white settlers. The Indians 
camped the first night under a cliff on Lick Creek, about a mile 
from the foot of Keeney's Knob, just by the rear of the side of the 
brick residence erected by Capt. A. A. Miller in 1868, where he 
resided at the time of his death. The pursuing party camped about 
three-quarters of a mile east, just below the foot of Keeney's 
Mountain, on Lick Creek, at the old Curtis Alderson place, about 
half a mile above the place where the writer was born and raised 
(the old Miller place). Griffith had settled at the mouth of Grif- 
fith's Creek, near Greenbrier River, on the John and Enos Ellis 
place, and an alarm had been made that the Indians were in the 
neighborhood, there being a fort almost opposite on the Lane Bot- 
toms, but Griffith, being a very brave man, declined to go into 
the fort. There were several Indians and one white man ; thev 
watched Griffith's house for some days for their opportunity. When 
the attack was made, Griffith was shot dead, and the Indians rushed 
for his scalp, but his wife, in order to save her husband's scalp, 



38 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



turned over a bee gum, and the Indians, being afraid of the bees, 
ran off without the scalp, taking the boy along. The Indians went 
on to where Green Sulphur Springs is now located, and where 
there was then a buffalo lick. They watched the lick until 
they killed a young buffalo, then they tied the boy in the 
pines on the opposite side of the creek, where they left him for two 
days and nights. They then returned, having their shot pouches 
filled with lead and bullets, which they somewhere secured during 
their absence. Securing their captive, they proceeded to the 
Kanawha River at the Ben Morris place. In the meantime the 
whites in the fort on the Greenbrier in the Griffith neighborhood 
organized a pursuing party composed of ten persons, who proceeded 
to follow the Indians, overtaking them at the Morris farm, where 
they had encamped. All the Indians and the white man had left 
the camp, except two who remained to guard the boy. The pur- 
suers arranged for two of them to shoot at each of the Indians and 
two at the boy, he also being taken at a distance for an Indian. 
. Both Indians were shot dead, but neither shot hit the boy, who 
escaped without a scratch. The legs of a deerskin which were 
sticking out by his side were hit, and in this miraculous manner 
he was saved from death. Capt. Ben Morris, who was in command 
of the pursuers, always claimed it was Providence that was instru- 
mental in saving the boy's life, as the -men who shot at him were 
ordinarily dead shots. The said Morris told this narrative to 
Jas. H. Miller, Sr., of Gauley Bridge, and it was he that shot at 
the boy, and ordinarily and invariably he could hit a dollar in silver 
at that distance. The Griffith boy returned to his friends. This 
is the last Indian excursion of which we have any historical or 
traditional account of the savages in this county. The night the 
Indians slept under the cliff on Lick Creek the whites camped a 
half-mile above at the Curtis Alderson place, and returned home 
next day for reinforcements, not knowing of the close proximity 
of the Indians. 

Keeney's Mountain, over which the Indians passed in their 
last raid into the Muddy Creek country, is still known by that 
name, and was named for one of the first settlers within the ter- 
ritory of this county, by the name of David Keeney, who settled 
near the foot of the Greenbrier County side in 1787. 

The Ohio Company, through Christopher Gist, explored a large 
part of what is now West Virginia, and in 1752 Gist sent his petition, 
"Beyond Sea," to His Most Excellent Majesty, the King of Eng- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



39 



land, praying for a grant of the lands he had explored, and for a 
new government in the region between the Allegheny Mountains 
and the Ohio River. The proposed province intended to be or- 
ganized by Gist was to be called "Vandalia," with Samuel Watson 
for Governor, and the capital to be at the mouth of the Great 
Kanawha River at what is now the town of Point Pleasant, in the 
county of Mason. The Revolutionary War was coming on, and 
this prospect was shattered thereby. This territory, surveys and 
explorations evidently included a part, if not all, of Summers 
County, and would have included Summers County. 

In the year 1750 Dr. Thomas Walker, with five companies from 
Virginia, explored into the Kentucky wilderness ; from thence they 
journeyed northward, crossed the Big Sandy River, and on the 28th 
day of January, 1750, reached the mouth of the Greenbrier River. 
Christopher Gist was an eminent surveyor and explorer from the 
Yadkin in North Carolina, and a friend of Washington's, who was 
with him when he delivered the famous message to the French 
commandant, and had his feet and hands frozen on that exploit. 

In 1742 John Sally, Chas. St. Clair, John Howard and his son, 
Joshua Howard, and others, explored into the southern portion of 
what is now West Virginia. They left their homes at the base of 
the Blue Ridge Mountains, in Augusta County, Virginia, and 
proceeded across the Allegheny Mountains down the Greenbrier 
River to its mouth, reached New River, which they descended to 
Richmond's Falls, at what is now New Richmond, ten miles west 
of Hinton on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad ; thence across 
through Raleigh County to the Coal River, and down same to the 
Great Kanawha, arriving there on May 6, 1742. We are not able 
to ascertain whether the old Greenbrier land grant of 100,000 acres, 
granted about 1751, included any part of Summers County or not, 
but it appears not. 

The first settlement in the state of West Virginia was in 1727, 
by Morgan, a Welshman, at Morgan in Berkeley County. The 
Conoys, a tribe or organization of the Delaware Nation, were early 
on New River. A band of Mohicans were at Kanawha Falls in 
1670. The first white man at Kanawha Falls was on the 17th 
day of September, 1671, and was an expedition sent out by Gov- 
ernor Berkeley of Virginia, who was endeavoring to obtain infor- 
mation regarding the vast trans montane region, and in 1670 issued 
his commission to Major General Wood, "For ye finding out the 
ebbing and flowing of the waters on ye other side of ye mountains." 



40 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



General Wood would not personally go on this expedition, but sent 
out a party, consisting of Thomas Batts, Thomas Wood, Robert 
Fallam, Jack Neasam, the latter being a servant of General Wood; 
and Perchute, a chief of the Appomattox Indians, as guide. They 
left Appomattox town, now Petersburg (the Cockade City of Vir- 
ginia), on the first day of September, 1671. On the seventh day 
they were at Blue Ridge; on the 13th on "Swope's Knob," near 
Union in Monroe County, and the next day on the high cliffs which 
crown New River, which flows thirty-five miles through the county; 
and on the evening of the 16th they reached Kanawha Falls, where 
they had the sight of a stream like the Thames of Chelsea, but had 
a fall that made a great noise, as reported on their return. This 
was 233 years ago. 

The next W 7 est Virginia exploration was forty-five years after- 
wards, of which we have no information that it reached this section 
of the country, and was sent out by Governor Spottswood. For 
many years the first settlers were confined to the east of the 
Allegheny Mountains. 

Governor Spottswood had a descendant in the person of John 
B. Spottswood, who was the editor of a Democratic newspaper at 
Kenton, Newton County, Indiana, until within the last ten years. 
Mr. Spottswood, through his mother, Eliza Schermerhorn, inher- 
ited what has been known as the Schermerhorn tract of land, on 
the headwaters of Lick Creek, Flag Fork, Slater's Creek, Mill 
Creek and Meadow River, being originally a patent or grant from 
the Commonwealth of Virginia of 28,000 acres. This large survey 
was reduced from generation to generation, until there remained 
only about 3,000 acres, it having been forfeited for the non-pay- 
ment of taxes and but little attention paid to it, Mr. Spottswood 
having acquired ownership by inheritance from his mother, who 
was a Spottswood. The land not being considered of value, about 
1881 or 1882 Spottswood sold his entire interest to a Mr. F. E. 
Crosby, who cut the timber therefrom, and then sold it to M. and 
H. Gwinn, who are the present owners. Mr. Spottswood was a 
direct descendant of Governor Spottswood, the colonial governor 
and a very honorable gentleman. This was the Banks Patent which 
descended to a Mrs. Eliza Shermerhorn, whose first husband was 
a direct descendant of the governor, and John B. was her son and 
inherited this land. The tract was divided among the heirs of 
Eliza Schermerhorn, one-half — that in Summers County — going to 
Spottswood, and the other half to the heirs by her last husband, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 41 



Schermerhorn. The Greenbrier half was acquired by James Jar- 
rett and Joseph Stevens at a tax sale. 

The territory of Summers County was once claimed under the 
jurisdiction of the French Dominions, the French claiming all of 
the territory west of the Allegheny Mountains, and the English 
were not for many years aggressive in posting settlements beyond 
the Alleghenies after the destruction of the Greenbrier settlements 
by the Indians, as it was deemed the part of wisdom not to imitate 
them and force them into combinations with the alert and active 
French. Thus discouraged, and without the protection of the 
strong arm of British law and British arms, the settlements beyond 
these mountains were not encouraged, and only the restless and 
hardy adventurer advanced for several years, but about from 1775 
to 1780 the settlers began to come into these regions in greater 
numbers. There was a fort on the first farm below the town of 
Alderson on Greenbrier River, which was captured by the Indians 
about the year 1763, or earlier. The people of this fort were all 
killed or captured, except one small girl, who escaped, but so young 
she could not tell who her people were. She married a gentleman 
in Greenbrier County. This fort was located where the dwelling 
house on said farm was located, and was occupied for many years 
by James Hill. Seventy years ago some of the bounds of the fort 
were clearly indicated, and the shape of the fort by the marks or 
creases or depressions in the ground. This place was visited by 
David Graham about seventy years ago, and he could plainly see the 
shape and position of the fort, as the ground had probably never 
been plowed, there being a grave at the site, nicely preserved. 
This fort was built by digging a trench along the bounds where 
it was to be located, and then split trees, or puncheons were set 
on ends, which made the creases in the ground. I insert a diagram 
of this fort, as shown on the ground in the days of Mr. Graham. 

The fort at Lewisburg was built in 1770, known as Fort Union. 
Donnally's Fort was about eight miles from Fort Union. Barger's 
Fort was on Tom's Creek in the now county of Montgomery. Col. 
Andrew Donnally built Donnally's Fort, and Col. John Stuart built 
Fort Spring, and Capt. Jarrett, whose descendants now live in 
Greenbrier — Hon. Hickman Jarrett being one of them, now living 
at Blue Sulphur Springs — built the fort on Wolf Creek known as 
the Wolf Creek, or Jarrett's Fort. Jarrett's Fort is reported to 
have been on the Greenbrier side of Greenbrier River, and was 
therefore in Summers County at Newman's Ferry. 



42 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



These loop corners are where 
the men stood to fire along the 
side of the fort when the In- 
dians were trying to cut down 
the fort or scale it. Four men 
with others to load the guns 
could guard all sides of the fort. 
I remember seeing those loop 

holes. D. Graham. 



Hinton, West Virginia, November 13, 1905. 
Mr. James H. Miller. 

Dear Sir: — Your letter of November 11th to hand and contents 
noted. There was a fort on the first farm below Alderson on the 
Greenbrier River. I have heard my father say it was captured by 
the Indians, likely about 1763, or earlier. The people of the fort 
were all killed or captured, except one small girl, who escaped, 
but so young she couldn't tell who her people were. She married 
a gentleman in Greenbrier County. This house was located where 
the dwelling house of said farm was located. It was occupied for 
a long time by Mr. James Hill. I recollect of being at Mr. Hill's 
about seventy years ago, and was shown some of the bounds of 
the old fort. I don't suppose that the old fort site had at that time 
ever been plowed, as there was a nice grove there at that time. 
There were indications of the shape of the fort by the creases and 
depressions in the ground. Forts in early days were built by dig- 
ging a trench along the bounds where the fort was to be located, 
and then set up split puncheons, and this is why these creases were 
made. I will give a cut of the shape of said fort. The Indians 
killed an old lady by the name of Butler. She was killed on the 
Mathews farm just across Greenbrier from Talcott, West Virginia, 
likely about 1778 or 1779. Two Indians were passing there. That 
was all the mischief they did. Thomas Griffith was killed at the 
mouth of Griffith's Creek in the year 1780. They captured his son, 
and they were followed and the son recaptured on Kanawha River. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 43 

Isaac Ballengee, Evi's grandfather, settled at the Evi Ballengee 
farm about 1780. A man by the name of Brooks settled at Brooks. 
The Fox folks can tell more than I can about that. 

DAVID GRAHAM. 

INDIAN ATTACK ON GRAHAM. 

In the spring of 1777 an Indian alarm was given in the settle- 
ment at Lowell on Greenbrier River, where Colonel James Graham 
had founded a settlement, and his plantation was assaulted one 
night before daybreak. Graham, being unwell on this night, had 
lain down on a bench against the door, with his clothes on. The 
Indians made the assault by trying to force the door open, which 
they partially succeeded in doing, thus arousing Graham and his 
men. They placed the heavy bench and a tub of water against the 
door, and in this way prevented the Indians from gaining an en- 
trance. A man by the name of McDonald, who was assisting in 
placing the table against the door, in reaching above the door for 
a gun, was shot and killed, the ball passing through the door. 
Thwarted in their efforts in effecting an entrance into the house, 
the Indians turned the assault on an outhouse standing near the 
main dwelling. In this outbuilding slept a young negro man and 
two Graham children. The negro, whose name was Sharp, tried 
to escape by climbing up the chimney. Chimneys in those days 
were large and roomy, and a man could easily pass from the fire- 
place to the top. But when he was discovered, he was hauled 
down, tomahawked and scalped. There were two children in the 
loft above, who began to cry, and that directed the attention of 
the Indians to that quarter. They shot up through the floor, 
wounded the eldest of the two boys, named John, in the knee, 
dragged him and his brother down into the yard, John being 
wounded so badly that he could not stand on his foot, and, thinking 
that he would be a burdensome prisoner, they tomahawked him 
and carried off his scalp. 

While this was going on in the kitchen, Col. Graham had gone 
upstairs, and was shooting through a port-hole at the Indians in 
the yard, and one Indian was thought to have been killed, and 
others possibly wounded. An Indian skeleton was found on Indian 
Draft a few years afterwards, near where E. D. Alderson now 
resides, and his jaw bones were used by Col. Graham for many 
years as a gun-rack. 

When morning came it was found that Col. Graham's ten- 



44 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



year-old boy, their neighbor, McDonald, and their servant, Sharp, 
were dead, and their seven-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, was miss- 
ing. Col. Graham, with a number of neighbors, followed, and, after 
eight. years, recovered the possession of his daughter, and for her 
ransom paid thirty saddles, a lot of beads and other trinkets, in 
all of the value of $300.00 in silver. The recovery was made at 
Limestone Creek, where Maysville, Kentucky, now is situated. 
Col. Graham made several expeditions to secure the possession of 
his daughter, and had negotiated for her possession on more than 
one occasion, but the treachery of the Indians prevented his carry- 
ing them into effect until this final ransom. After the exchange 
was made the shoes of the horses of the. rescuing party were re- 
versed, so that, if pursued by the Indians, the horses' tracks would 
seem to be traveling in an opposite direction. 

This young lady was retained by the Indians for eight years, 
and, upon her return to civilization, the customs she met with 
seemed new and strange. On one occasion her mother asked her 
to soak the bread, and afterwards asked her how it was getting 
on. She replied, "Very well," that she had "taken two loaves and 
thrown them into the river and put a rock on them." She threat- 
ened frequently to return to the Indians. She afterwards married 
Joel Stodgill, in the year 1792, and settled on Han's Creek, in 
Monroe County, and reared five sons and four daughters. She 
died March 22, 1858. She was the grandmother of Mr. Andrew P. 
Pence, of Pence Springs ; also of Mrs. Richard McNeer, and the 
grandmother of Mrs. Rebecca McNeer, the wife of Caperton Mc- 
Neer, who was a Stodgill, and uncle and aunt of the writer, now 
residing at Linside, in Monroe County. 

The occurrence of this Indian tragedy was at what is now 
Lowell, where the ancestors of the present Graham family formed 
a settlement about the year 1770 or 1780, and was the first Der- 
mal) ent seltlement in this county of wmich we have any positive 
record, except on Crump's Bottom in 1750. They afterwards 
located at what is now Clayton Post Office, at the foot of Keeney's 
Knob, which lands are still held by the immediate descendants, 
Mr. Charles H. Graham, David Graham Ballangee, James Gra- 
ham's widow, Rebecca, who, after his death, married W. W. Wal- 
ton, and other descendants. 

I am indebted for the account of this Indian capture of Eliza- 
beth (Graham) Stodhill to Mr. David Graham's book (History of 
the Graham Family), and from the immediate descendants of Mrs. 
Stodgill, many of whom are now living in Monroe, Summers and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 45 



Fayette Counties. While the real and proper name of Mrs. Stod- 
gill is "Stodgill," the name of Sturgeon is very commonly used, 
and as such they are known. Mrs. Margaret Miller, of Gauley 
Bridge, in Fayette County, being one of the descendants of this 
lady and, until recent investigations, was under the impression that 
her descendants' proper name was "Sturgeon." The settlements 
of the Gwinns, Kellars, Kincaids and others were made about this 
time on the Greenbrier River, in the Lowell neighborhood, and 
with the permission of Mr. David Graham, the historian of the 
Graham family, I- have secured and used much information and data 
In regard to the early settlement of the Lowell section. 

The Indians killed an old lady by the name of Massey on the 
Mathews farm, just across Greenbrier River from Talcott, West 
Virginia, about 1778 or 1779. Two Indians were passing there, 
and they did no other mischief except to kill this lady. Isaac Bal- 
langee, the grandfather of LaFayette Ballangee, now eighty years 
old, residing near the mouth of Greenbrier River, settled at the 
mouth of Greenbrier, on the old Evi Ballangee place, in 1780, and 
a man by the name of Brooks at the same time settled at Brooks' 
Post Office, four miles west of Hinton, in the Fox neighborhood, 
and it was after him that Brooks' Creek, Brooks' Falls, on New 
River, and Post Office, were named. Ballangee first settled on the 
island to more easily protect themselves from the savage men and 
beasts of the wilderness. 

The New River country was visited by Chief Justice John Mar- 
shall, the great chief justice of the United States, with other com- 
missioners, who explored that stream in 1812. The report of these 
commissioners is a most interesting document. An exploration 
was also made by Loami Baldwin and party in 1817, in a boat fifty 
feet long, from the mouth of Howard's Creek in Greenbrier County, 
and down the Greenbrier River to its mouth at Foss, a mile east 
of Summers' court house; thence they turned up New River and 
proceeded to the mouth of Indian Creek; thence they returned 
down the river to the present site of Hinton, and thence on down 
New River to its mouth. 

These are said by Prof. Virgil A. Lewis to be the most inter- 
esting narratives of our state. 

Chief Justice Marshall on this exploration climbed to the top 
of what is commonly known as "Hawk's Nest," some six miles 
from the mouth of Gaully, a great cliff in the New River gorge or 
canyon, and from this visit it took the name of Marshall's Pillar, a 
wonderful natural curiosity, and is viewed and visited by many tour- 



46 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

ists at this day. The accounts of these explorations are now on file 
in the department of Archives and History, at Charleston, of 
which Prof. Lewis is state historian and archivist. He is a direct 
descendant of Gen. Charles Lewis, of Point Pleasant fame, and 
whose ancestors first surveyed the Greenbrier country and named 
the Greenbrier River. He was for a term the State Superintendent 
of Schools of West Virginia, resides at Raymond City, in Mason 
County, and is the celebrated historian of the state, and has done 
more to preserve the ancient history of the state to posterity than 
any and all other persons. 

Chief Justice Marshall and other commissioners were sent out 
to explore this New River in 1812. Laomi Baldwin and party 
came on a similar voyage in 1817. They again visited and passed 
by the site of Hinton, and explored a great part of our country. 



CHAPTER IV. 



IN THE EARLY DAYS. 

John Hite was the name of the first man to plant the stand- 
ard of civilization west of the Blue Ridge Mountains. 

John Lewis, an expert surveyor, first made a survey of the 
Greenbrier region, surveying the Greenbrier Land Company's 
grants in the years 1749 and 1750, and it was he, while making this 
survey, who named the Greenbrier River and proclaimed it the most 
beautiful river in America, calling it the "Lady of the Mountains," 
giving it the name of Greenbrier by reason of the great numbers 
of green briers, a thorny vine-appearing growth, perfectly green, 
which spontaneously grew along the banks of that river, and which 
grows there the same this day. The land was so cheap in those 
days that Governor Gooch, of Virginia, was so well pleased that 
he issued a grant to Benj. Borden, or Burden, for four hundred 
thousand acres of land in consideration of Borden having deliv- 
ered to him a white buffalo calf. 

This man Burden was a native of England who settled in the 
valley of Virginia. He was the possessor of a great estate in lands, 
a man of great experience and of great character. His word or his 
scrip went as good as those of the nation's banks, and it was from 
this character which he bore over great regions of the country that 
brought about the saying, "As good as Ben. Burden's bill." The 
ancient Peck family were allied by marriage with this character- 
istic Englishman, and the name Benj. Burden Peck is a common 
name in the Peck family of this day. 

Monroe County, as heretofore stated, was formed from Green- 
brier on the 14th day of January, 1799. The first term of court 
for that county was held at the house and in the barn of George 
King, and then by adjournment therefrom to his barn after the noon 
hour, for convenience, as stated by the records. 

On the second day of the term James Graham was recommended 
to the governor as a person well qualified for colonel ; William 
Graham and Mat Farley for captains ; William Maddy, David 



48 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Graham and Tollison Shumate for lieutenants, and James Gwinn 
and John Harvey for ensigns ; Joseph Alderson for second lieuten- 
ant. The James Graham mentioned was the same Colonel Graham 
who made the settlement at Lowell, where the old ferry across 
Greenbrier River is known to this day as Graham's Ferry. James 
Graham was at this term also recommended as a suitable person 
for coroner. There are descendants of all these people living in 
this region at this day, no doubt. They are persons of the same 
name, and there is no question but what they are direct descend- 
ants of these old settlers. 

Thomas Lowe, Robert Dunbar, John Cottle, George Foster and 
Enos Halstead are mentioned in the first records of this court, and 
are names familiar to Summers County citizens at the present gen- 
eration. Jacob Persinger and John Peck were members of the 
first grand jury of .that county. Greenbrier County, as before 
stated, was formed in October, 1777, and extended from the top 
of the Allegheny Mountains to the Ohio River. Col. James Gra- 
ham, who is frequently mentioned in this story, was in Donnally's 
. Fort, eight miles from Lewisburg, when that place was last at- 
tacked by the Indians in 1778, and assisted in its defense against 
these marauders. 

Rev. John McElheny was the second Presbyterian minister of 
whom we have any record in the Greenbrier region. He came to 
Lewisburg in 1798, and was in the active ministry until 1871, Lick 
Creek being within his territory, visiting that region at John Mil- 
ler's, Sr., and his brother, Robert's, once a month, Robert Miller 
having settled about a mile and a half below John on Lick Creek. 

John Alderson w T as the founder of the Baptist Church at Aider- 
son, near the Summers County line, about the year 1775. These 
pioneers ministered to the spiritual wants of our grandparents, 
their parishioners, and Rev. McElheney, who was well-known and 
remembered by my father, was not averse to some of the internal 
physical comforts of the body, as well as ministering to the spir- 
itual welfare of his parishioners. The last exercise before break- 
fast on each morning was for the two old gentlemen, John Miller 
and the reverend, to take their morning toddy of sugar, warm water 
and apple brandy. Mr. McElheny afterwards became a Doctor of 
Divinity and was a patriarch of the Presbyterian Church, and was 
a very saintly, pious and devout man. 

In those days every farmer who had an apple or other orchard 
manufactured what fruit he had or desired into brandy. If he had 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 49 

a good plum crop he made it into brandy; or, if it was a peach 
crop or apple crop, it was peach or apple brandy. 

George W. Summers, after whom Summers County was named, 
was born in Fayette County in 1804, settled in Kanawha County 
while a boy, graduated at the Ohio University, elected to the Gen- 
eral Assembly of Virginia for ten years, elected to Congress and 
took his seat in 1842, re-elected in 1845 ; was a member of the Con- 
stitutonal Convention of 1850, and a Whig condidate for governor 
in 1851. In 1852 he was elected judge of the Eighteenth Judicial 
Circuit of Virginia, but resigned in 1858. In 1861 was a member 
of the convention which passed the Ordinance of Secession, which 
action on the part of the convention he earnestly opposed. 

The town of Hinton was incorporated September 21, 1880. We 
are unable from history or from tradition to give any detailed state- 
ment of the different sections of the county. The most reliable in- 
formation we have is as to the two sections of this county now 
included in Green Sulphur and Talcott Districts. 

That section near and around Lowell was one of the earliest 
settled sections of the county. About the year 1770, or, possibly, 
a little later, James Graham, with his family, moved to Greenbrier 
and settled on the opposite side of the river from where the village 
of Lowell now stands. He erected on his own land a farmhouse, 
two stories, built of hewn logs, of which we are enabled to repro- 
duce a cut, as the house is still standing, well preserved, now 
occupied by B. L. Kesler. This house was built a century and a 
quarter, or more, ago. It is in size 24 x 30 feet, two stories high ; 
the sills of walnut, with two large stone chimneys ; the fireplace in 
the front room is six feet wide, and has a wooden arch five feet 
high. The hardware consisted of wrought iron nails, made from a 
blacksmith shop ; the lumber was sawed by hand by an old-fash- 
ioned whip-saw. This house at the time of its construction was 
considered one of the finest in all that region. There was a fort 
erected on the opposite side of the river, where Spott's Hotel now 
stands, known as Graham's Fort. It will be remembered that, after 
the destruction of the white settlements on Muddy Creek and in 
Greenbrier County by the Indians, about 1760, all the settlers 
were killed, captured or fled, and no further attempts were made 
towards again settling the Greenbrier country until about 1770. 
It is generally believed that this settlement, when made by Col. 
Graham, was one of the first made in this immediate region, if not 
the very first. 

A Mr. Van Vibber located on the opposite side of the river on 
the George Keller place about the same time that Col. Graham 



50 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



located at the Bun Kesler place. The name of Van Vibber is 
familiar in the settlement of the Great Kanawha region, and it is 
believed that the name comes from the same man who early settled 
on Greenbrier. 

About the same time that Graham settled near Lowell, Samuel 
and James Gwinn, two brothers, settled in the same section. The 
Grahams and Gwinns were neighbors on the Calf Pasture River 
in Virginia before they emigrated, and had both sailed from 
Ireland together. Samuel Gwinn, Sr., moved from the Lowell 
settlement to Lick Creek, where Green Sulphur Springs is now 
located, about the year 1800, and died there March 25, 1839, in 
the ninety-fourth year of his age. 

Hon. M. Gwinn and Sheriff H. Gwinn, whose names are fre- 
quently mentioned in this narrative, now own the farm settled on 
by him. He is reported to have accumulated considerable prop- 
erty, and that at one time he had $12,000.00 in silver, which he 
divided among his sons some years before his death. His sons 
were named Samuel and Andrew, and Mr. David Graham, the 
author of the "History of the Graham Family," now well advanced 
in the eighties, remembers seeing them take their part of the silver 
by his father's house in common grain bags, and about a half 
bushel in bulk in each. They carried this money from Green Sul- 
phur Springs up Lick Creek, over Keeney's Knob to their home at 
Lowell, they having $2,500.00 each. 

It is told of this Mr. Gwinn that, while he was attending to 
some business at Lewisburg, he fell in with some gamblers who 
induced him to enter a game of cards. Knowing that he had plenty 
of money, they permitted him to win the first few games, then 
proceeded to double the bet, to which he replied that his mother 
had always told him that it was a wise man who knew when to 
quit ; so saying, he arose from the table and bade the gamblers 
"good day." 

The descendants of this Samuel Gwinn are many, and are lo- 
cated over different parts of the United States. He was the grand- 
father of Andrew Gwinn, now residing at Lowell, more than 
eighty-five years of age ,and of Samuel, who died over the age of 
ninety, within the last twelve months. Andrew, better known as 
"Long Andy," on account of his great height, is living on almost 
the identical spot where their grandfather located more than 125 
years ago. James Gwinn, who located near the same place on 
Keller's Creek and on what is now known as the Laban Gwinn 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



51 



place. It was his son who was appointed ensign at the first court 
ever held in Monroe County. 

Conrad Keller was one of the early settlers of the Lowell set- 
tlement, and it was his daughter that married Ephraim J. Gwinn, 
the youngest son of Samuel Gwinn, Sr., and the father of M. and H. 
Gwinn, and it was his daughter who married James Ferrel, who 
lived in the big bend of Greenbrier River back of the Big Bend 
Tunnel, where E. D. Ferrell and William Ferrell now reside. 
George and Henry Keller, of Lowell, are descendants of Conrad 
Keller, as is also Robert A. Keller, cashier of bank of Pineville. 

The property at Lowell settled on by the Kellers in these early 
times still remains in the Keller family, and has come down from 
one generation to another until the present time ; George Keller, 
an aged and respected citizen residing at Lowell Station, and Henry 
Keller, a nephew, a short distance up Keller's Creek. The Keller 
homestead, as suggested by Mr. Graham, is on a beautiful eleva- 
tion overlooking Greenbrier River. Mr. George Keller is about 
eighty-five years old, and one of the most respected citizens of this 
county, as is Mr. Henry Keller, who is very much younger in years. 

Among the early settlers in this vicinity was a man by the 
name of See, who lived on the land originally occupied by David 
Keller. The date of his settling can not be stated, but supposed 
to be about the time of the Graham settlement. See sold his claim 
to Conrad Keller; and went farther west. He finally permanently 
located on the Big Sandy River,, where his descendants reside to 
this day. 

To these primeval settlers might also be added the name of 
Notliff Taylor, who settled at the Henry Milburn place, eight or 
nine miles west of the Graham settlement on the Greenbrier River. 
His daughter, Ann, married Isaac Milburn, the grandfather of our 
present county man, Henry Milburn, Jr., and the father of the late 
Henry Milburn, deceased. Elizabeth married Samuel Gwinn. 

William Kincaid settled on the Jesse Beard place, now owned 
by Messrs. A. P. Pence and George N. Davis, on which the cele- 
brated Pence's Spring is situated, along about this time. This 
spring was then celebrated only as a buffalo lick, and the marks 
of the old buffalo traces may still be seen leading across Keeney's 
Knob from the Buffalo Spring (head of Lick Creek) to the Buffalo 
Lick, they being located about fifteen miles apart, where Green 
Sulphur is located. Kincaid left that settlement about the year 
1800, and left no descendants in this county so far as known. Wil- 
liam Hinchman, an Englishman, settled in this county east of 



52 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Lowell, close to the Summers line, in what is now Monroe County, 
about the time of the Revolutionary War, and of whom the present 
William Hinchman's family are descendants ; Capt. A. A. Miller, 
of Lick Creek, having married a daughter of William Hinchman, 
and a sister of the late John Hinchman. William Hinchman first 
settled on the river below the mouth of Gwinn's Branch, just below 
Lowell, under a lease from Samuel Gwinn, Sr., and shortly after- 
wards left and permanently settled on the present Hinchman prop- 
erty. William Hinchman was born in the year 1770. He was the 
father of twenty-four children. This William Hinchman was the 
grandfather of the late Hon. John Hinchman, whose death oc- 
curred in 1896, and on whose tombstone at the old Riverview 
Church is inscribed, "He died as he lived — a Christian." 

The Grahams left the Lowell settlement and located at the foot 
of Keeney's Knob on the ground now occupied by Mr. David 
Graham Ballangee, the postmaster. On the spot where Joseph 
Graham first located, near Clayton, had been a hunter's cabin, 
previously occupied by a man by the name of Stevenson, or "Stin- 
son," from which a spur of Keeney's Knob overlooking the Graham 
farm is to this day called "Stinson's Knob." 

After the termination of the French and Indian War the French 
maintained no further claims or supremacy over any of the terri- 
tory of West Virginia. It may be possible that some of the Indian 
depredations made on the English settlers after that time were 
instigated by unauthorized French adventurers without authority 
from the government, as the English and French were at war 
almost continually during the settlement period of this dominion. 
It was no doubt within the French dominion proper at one time, 
but was claimed by the English as a part of the discoveries of 
John and Sebastian Cabot, who sailed along a part of the Atlantic 
Coast in 1498, after the discoveries of Columbus, the Spanish 
admiral and discoverer. The Six Nations, the most powerful Indian 
confederacy ever on the American continent, held dominion of the 
territory of West Virginia at one time, but its entire authority, 
whatever it was, was relinquished to King George of Great Britain 
by the treaty signed on the 24th of August, 1768. 

Abram Keller, a descendant of Konrad Keller, possibly his son, 
removed to Ironton, Ohio, and formed a Keller settlement, and 
one of his descendants, R. A. Keller, the courteous cashier of the 
Citizens' National Bank of Pineville, is his descendant, and Konrad 
Keller, of the Lowell settlement, his ancestor. Ben D. Keller, the 
efficient stenographer, who has given great aid in this work, is his 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 53 



son. R. A. Keller married a direct descendant of Peter Wright, the 
hunter and pioneer, who first explored and hunted over Peters 
Mountain, and after whom it is named. 

The farm known as Barker's Bottom on New River, now owned 
by Mrs. John Webb and Mrs. Rosa Bradbury, daughters of the late 
M. C. Barker, was originally granted by the Commonwealth of 
Virginia to Thomas GatlifT ; was conveyed by his heirs to Anderson 
Pack, and by Pack to M. C. Barker. It is one of the richest and 
most desirable tracts of land in Summers County. In 1891, during 
a freshet in New River, it overflowed its banks, washing off the 
top of the soil a depth of over eighteen inches, covering a consid- 
rable strip of this land, uncovering and exposing a prehistoric grave- 
yard entirely unknown to any person then living prior to this 
freshet. This graveyard covers at least forty acres of that bottom, 
and was evidently the burying-place of some prehistoric race of 
people. Whole skeletons of human bodies were uncovered, human 
teeth were found well preserved, skulls, bones, and skeletons of 
entire human bodies. In nearly all of the graves were found a 
knife-shaped bone, which had evidently been dressed and used as 
a weapon and buried with the owner. 

A peculiar pot made from clay was discovered, and in one place 
as many as two hundred human teeth found in a pile, apparently 
the teeth of children. A stone turtle was found on this ground 
several years previous by Jonathan Lee Barker, and at the request 
of John West, who resided in Alexandria, Virginia, and the owner 
of a large tract of land in the Pipestem District, the possession of 
this stone relic was transferred to him and he delivered the same 
to the Smithsonian Institute at Washington, D. C, where it may 
be seen at this day by persons visiting that interesting institution, 
but Mr. W r est gives credit to himself and to Virginia as the con- 
tributors, and not to Summers County and Mr. Barker. 

I am under obligations to Mr. William Remly Mann for infor- 
mation regarding this prehistoric graveyard, Mr. J. L. Barker and 
others. Mr. Mann now resides in this neighborhood. He is a son 
of Jacob Mann, who removed from Monroe County many years 
ago, and settled in the Ellisons' neighorhood in Jumping Branch 
District. His father, now deceased, was a member of the first 
Grand Jury sitting in Summers County, at the old log church on 
New River. The old graveyard referred to has been plowed over 
and cultivated for hundreds of years no doubt. The skeletons were 
buried in a cramped and upright position. No metals of any kind 
were discovered. The bodies were placed in the ground three or 



54 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



four feet apart and in an irregular formation. All kinds of animal 
bodies were also found, in these graves, as well as mussel and other 
shells. 

Neely Cook, one hundred years ago, built a cabin on this bot- 
tom, which was immediately on the grounds of these graves, but 
they were unknown and undiscovered by him until revealed as 
herein stated. The same freshet washed out the Harvey Bottoms 
further up the river, and also Crump's Bottoms, where the same 
evidences of ancient burying-grounds were exposed in each in- 
stance, and the bones of animals and many skeletons of human 
beings, no doubt of a prehistoric race, whose fate and whose history 
is lost forever. The Harvey place is some ten miles above the 
Gatliff or Barkers, and the Crumps about half way between. Many 
relics, skulls, stones, pottery, etc., are preserved, too numerous to 
undertake to describe further. 

When the county was first formed everything was primitive as 
late as 1871. It was the ragged end of four old counties. Every 
farmer raised all of his own grain, and bought what he was short 
from his more thrifty neighbor ; raised and preserved all his own 
meat ; raised sheep, from the wool of which he manufactured his 
clothing, weaving the cloth for wearing apparel, the cloth being 
jeans and flannel, and tow from flax; raised, "skutched" and spun 
on the old-fashioned spinning-wheel, and woven into cloth on the 
looms, all well-regulated farms having all the necessary apparatus 
for this character of manufacture. The leather for the shoes, boots 
and harness was made from the beeves killed for meat on the farm. 
All clothing, after the cloth had been woven by the women of the 
household, was by them cut, patterned and made into clothes for 
both the male and female members of the family; some of the cloth 
for the ladies' wearing apparel being secured at the store, but the 
stores were few and far between and the prices exorbitant. All 
sugar was manufactured from the sugar tree, and the country 
blacksmith made nearly all the farming implements, including 
wagons, of which there were but few ; and the reap hook and sickle 
were still in use, with the cradle and scythe for cutting wheat and 
grass. There were but two mowing machines in the country, and 
no harvesters ; fertilizers being unheard of in farming except what 
was gathered from the barn. Skiffs and boats were hardly known 
on the rivers, the canoe being still dexterously handled by the 
hardy river men. Kerosene oil lamps were not introduced until 
1865, the pine knot, old "tallow dip," candle and sycamore ball 
rolled in grease being still in use. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 55 



There was one store in the Green Sulphur District at the old 
log storehouse, kept by James Bledsoe, once maintained by John 
and Alex. Miller; one in Talcott, kept by J. W. and Wm. Jones; one 
in Jumping Branch, kept by Wm. T. Meador; and one at Forest 
Hill, then known as the Farms. They were all the stores in the 
county at the date of its formation, and the goods were hauled over- 
land from Lynchburg, Jackson's River and Cannelton, the head of 
navigation on the Kanawha River. There had once been a store 
at Elton in a log house, one kept by David M. Rifle on the Riffe's 
Bottom, where M. M. Warren now lives on the old Red Sulphur 
Turnpike. All salt was hauled from the Kanawha River, and cost 
$9.00 per barrel. The flint-lock rifle was still used, and the "deer- 
lick" was watched by night. The "log-rollings," "grubbings," 
"skutchings," "quiltings" and "fencings" were still in vogue, when 
a man's neighbors, both men and women, would be invited, and 
spend the day in aiding in whatever work was desired. The "corn 
huskings" were usually at night, when both men and women would 
gather in and shuck out a neighbor's cornfield. Elections were 
holidays. The woods were still full of deer and all small game, 
and the rivers filled with fish. The people were not poor, nor were 
they rich, but they were happy. Crime was not general ; little use 
was had for locks; the principal subject for larceny was the horse. 
Horse stealing was not uncommon, but the thieves were from with- 
out the borders of the county. A wedding in the neighborhood was 
a notable event, and everybody went to church and the funeral. The 
coming of the railway, the steam sawmill and allied industries have 
changed the face of the civilization of this territory.' Thirty years 
ago, before the railway came and the public works, the employment 
was on the farm. A young man would engage to do farm work 
for a whole year for a horse. This work was in clearing up the 
wild lands, grubbing, fence building, «• log rolling, brush burning, 
etc., and in raising a crop. There were no markets except what 
could be sold to the country produce store for merchandise. Fifty 
cents a day was the usual wages for "straight time" — no allow- 
ance for wet days or time not actually at labor, and the hours 
were from daylight to dark. The principal income was from the 
stock raised and tobacco grown. A few made money by hunting 
the wild game still in the mountains. Hugh Boone still made 
$10.00 a day. 

The first store on Lick Creek after the Civil War was by S. 
Williams & Co., the company being John A., James W. and Wm. 
E. Miller. They bought their goods from Jas. H. Miller at Gauley 
Bridge and hauled them over Sewell Mountain, sixty miles. 



.56 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

The advancements of industry and wealth of the county since 
its formation have been steady and upward. There have been no 
booms in realty, nor were we in the boom sections at any time 
during their history. Our towns, villages, lots, farms and prop- 
erties have steadily enhanced with a regular financial growth. Being 
exclusively an agricultural territory, among great mountains and 
hills, with narrow valleys, there have been no sudden advancing 
prices of real property, but much more of the lands have come into 
the market and become salable, which were not marketable at the 
date of the establishment of the county. Great portions of the 
lands which were in forests and a wilderness, have been cleared 
up, and are now under cultivation. Real estate, which was scarcely 
worth paying the taxes on then, is now supporting thrifty inhab- 
itants. The population has grown from some 8,000 in 1880, the 
date of our first census since the formation of the county, to 16,000, 
as shown by the census of 1900. The increase in population in 
the interim of twenty years being about 8,000. The voting popu- 
lation was then 750 votes; in 1904, 3,600 votes. 

We doubt if there is in the state a county in which there is a 
greater per cent, of the inhabitants who own their own homes and 
are freeholders. Many of them rough, hilly, steep and small in 
territory, but the owner is independent and the owner of his own 
castle. Nothing tends more to the honesty and general well-being 
of a community than the independence of its inhabitants, and noth- 
ing tends to make those inhabitants independent, free, honest and 
upright than their ability to own their own homes, which he feels 
is his castle, be it ever so small or humble, or however prescribed 
its territorial limits may be. 

The price of lands being so reasonable, the poorest laborer, if 
he had any thrift, was able to buy and pay for a home for himself 
and his children. There has been of late years a tendency of many 
of our young men to abandon the farm, with its quiet, and seek the 
more exciting life and surroundings of the public works ; but, as a 
general rule, we doubt if the exchange from the farm to the shop 
has been for the betterment of the general condition of the majority 
of those who have sought the change. There has been a steady 
increase in the wealth of the population, as is shown by the com- 
parison of the various re-assessments of the realty and the annual 
assessment of the personalty. 

The great apparent advancement for the year 1905 is accounted 
for from the fact that, prior to 1904, in making the assessments, the 
assessor, under the prior laws, fixed the values at approximately 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 57 



from one-half to two-thirds of what property would bring if sold 
at public auction for cash under the hammer, or what property 
would bring if placed on the block, but in 1904, by an Act passed 
by an extraordinary session of the Legislature, the valuations were 
required to be fixed at "their true and actual value" — what the 
property would bring if sold, or, in the ordinary methods of trade, 
whether for cash or on a credit. 

There is much more wealth now within the borders of the 
county than there was at its formation. Many of the farmers have 
accumulated and saved up money, in addition to improving, clear- 
ing up and enhancing the values of their farms. It is not infrequent 
to find a thrifty farmer with a snug bank account to his credit, in 
the meantime building new, comfortable and modern dwellings, 
outbuildings, placing plank and wire fences around his lands, re- 
moving the rocks, clearing up and draining the soil. 

The price of labor, especially of skilled labor, has increased, as 
well as the cost of living. Skilled labor has increased largely, and 
many have saved snug fortunes, secured handsome and comfor- 
table residences, as well as placing a nice bank account to their 
credit. Great and material advancements along these lines have 
been made. The old-fashioned log house is disappearing. The 
man who was able to construct and own a two-story hewn log 
house in the early days was considered prosperous, and was gen- 
erally considered getting along better than his neighbor who still 
adhered to the round log house, but few of the "best-to-do," or 
aristocrats, if I may apply that term to any of the former inhabit- 
ants, had better than a double story hewed log house, covered with 
shingles and ceiled on the inside, but usually daubed with mortar 
and chinks by filling the cracks between the logs with split sticks 
or chinking, and then filling the remainder of the space and cover- 
ing the chinks with mortar. Every enterprising or well-to-do 
farmer had a mortar hole on his farm, "and every fall, before the 
coming on of winter, "daubed" his house by filling up the cracks, 
or holes where the chinking had come loose, or the daubing had 
fallen out during the previous season. 

At the date of the formation of Summers County there were 
but two brick houses and no frame houses in Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict—that of Capt. A. A. Miller on Lick Creek, built in 1868 by 
Capt. Silas F. Taylor, and that of Sheriff H. Gwinn, built also by 
Mr. Taylor, at Green Sulphur Springs, for his father, Ephraim J. 
Gwinn. In Jumping Branch District there was only one brick 
house and no frame houses. That one brick house is now owed by 



58 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Mr. W. D. R. Deeds, near Jumping Branch. In Pipestem District 
there was but one brick house, that of Wm. B. Crump, on Crump's 
Bottom, and a two-story, unpainted frame house on the land of 
Anderson Shumate on the old Mercer Salt Works property. In 
Forest Hill District there was but one brick house, that of Mr. 
Isaac Young, on New River, which later fell down and has been 
destroyed. Not a single frame house was in that district (in 
Greenbrier District there was not a single brick house nor any 
frame dwellings; Talcott was then a part of Greenbrier), not even 
where the city of Hinton now stands, the only buildings in the 
territory of the two cities being two two-story hewed log houses. 

There were then no frame or plank stables, barns or fences, all 
being log, and the fences all old split rail worm fence, many of the 
rails being of popular and walnut timber. 

There was in the early days quite a profitable industry from 
which the farmers and merchants derived a considerable income — 
that of raising and transporting tobacco, which was cultivated quite 
extensively and successfully in Forest Flill and Pipestem and a part 
of Talcott Districts, there being one good tobacco factory in the 
county, at Forest Hill, owned by the late James Mann, an enter- 
prising citizen, farmer and cattle-raiser of Monroe and Greenbrier 
Counties. The tobacco was raised and cured in log barns built 
for that purpose, and then transported to market by wagons, usu- 
ally to Danville, Lynchburg and Richmond, in Virginia. In Pipe- 
stem District the soil was peculiarly adapted to raising a very fine 
quality of merchantable tobaccos, used largely for wrapper, which 
brought fancy prices, but this industry has since been abandoned, 
and many of the tobacco barns now permitted to become unpic- 
turesque ruins. 

It was a somewhat uncertain crop, and frequently,, after the 
farmer had his crop almost ready for the market, he would lose 
it by fire in concluding its cure. There is now no tobacco raised 
in the county for market. 

Maj. Anderson McNeer, of Monroe County, in 1878, established, 
in connection with his son, A. A. McNeer, now a resident of Green- 
ville, in that county, a factory for the manufacture of plug 
tobacco in the town of Hinton, which he followed with some 
success for a few years, but finally, on account of the failure of 
the farmers to produce a sufficient crop to justify it, he abandoned 
the enterprise and sold the outfit. Geo. W. Chattin, at Talcott, 
also had a tobacco factory at Rollinsburg on his farm on Greenbrier 
River, now in ruins. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



59 



It is true the pOA^erty of the early days of this country which 
the pioneers felt was, as said by the late Hon. James G. Blaine, 
"Indeed no poverty; it was but the beginning of wealth, and it has 
the boundless possibilities of the future always open before it." 

In those days the "house-raising," "corn-husking," "log-roll- 
ing," and the "fence-buildings," "flax scutchings" and "quiltings" 
were matters of common interest in the neighborhood, as well as 
helpfulness, and those who have grown up in this independent agri- 
cultural region can have no other quality than that of broadness, 
generousness and independence. This honorable independence marks 
the history of the inhabitants of this good county, and may it ever 
continue, for it marks the rank of millions of the best blood and 
brain of the present citizenship and future government of the repub- 
lic. The boy who was born heir to land and the man who acquires 
it and who holds title to that of freeholder has the patent to and 
passport of independence, as well as self-respect. 

The people of Summers County should be proud of their log 
cabins and of their aristocratic log mansions. They are passing 
away, and, possibly before another generation has passed, will be 
as much of a curiosity among our hills as the old Revolutionary 
flint-lock musket is at' the present day, and our independent pro- 
genitors will be as proud as Daniel Webster when he proclaimed 
before a great multitude his testimony, that "It did not happen for 
me to be born in a log cabin, but my elder brothers and sisters 
were born in a log cabin, raised among the snowdrifts of New 
Hampshire in a period so early that, when the smoke rose first 
from its rude chimney and curled over the frozen hills, there was 
no similar evidence of a white man's habitation between it and 
the settlements on the rivers of Canada. Its remains still exist. 
I make it an annual visit. I carry my children to it to teach them 
the hardships endured by the generations which have gone before 
them. I love to dwell on the tender recollections, the kindred ties, 
the early affections and the touching narratives and incidents which 
mingle with all I know in this primitive family abode." 

BATTLE OF POINT PLEASANT. 

This battle occurred on the 10th of October, 1774, and was the 
termination of "Dunmore's War." At that time Fincastle County 
included all the present state of Kentucky and a large part of West 
Virginia, and especially the section of the state of which Summers 
is a part. The Indians were in command of one of the greatest of 



60 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



their race — Cornstalk-— who was not unfriendly to the whites, and 
who was afterwards murdered in cold blood by mutinous troops, 
and in whose honor a monument stands in the court house yard at 
Point Pleasant, Mason County ; and Logan, the famous Mingo 
chief, was also in this battle. Logan's mother was a Cayuga In- 
dian ; his father was a French child captured and adopted into the 
Oneida tribe. For many years he lived at Shamokin, Pa., and was 
known as John Shikellimo. His appellation of Logan was in honor 
of James Logan, the secretary of the province. His Indian name 
was Tachenechdonis (Branching Oak of the Forest). During the 
French and Indian War he maintained strict neutrality, seeking 
refuge in Philadelphia. Tradition tells of his kindness and friend- 
ship to the whites, good will and generosity, except when under 
the influence of liquor. In 1772 he removed to Yellow Creek, 
where, on April 30. 1774, occurred an incident which led to "Dun- 
more's War" and the Battle of Point Pleasant. Having glutted his 
vengeance by five prolonged raids during the summer and autumn, 
he returned during Lord Dunmore's negotiations with the Indians. 
Failing to appear, Dunmore sent his interpreter, Gibson, to bring 
him to the conference. Logan refused to go, and upon that occa- 
sion delivered the famous speech, generally quoted as an example of 
Indian eloquence, to which Jefferson paid the high tribute in his 
"Notes on Virginia." There has long been a great controversy 
concerning the genuineness of this speech and its attribution to the 
murder of Logan's people by Cressap and Greathouse. 

It is established beyond a reasonable doubt that this speech was 
delivered in substance as it has come down to us by Logan, but he 
was mistaken in attributing the murder of his family to Cresap. 
(See Jacob's "Life of Cresap and Meyers.") 

After this time he removed to Mud River in Logan County, 
and, later, to Detroit. He saved Simon Kenton from the stake in 
1778, and the next year was leading savage Indians in Southwest 
Virginia. He was killed by one of his relatives in 1778 on his return 
to Detroit. He said he had two souls — one bad and one good. 
When the good soul ruled, he was kind and humane : when the bad 
ruled, he was perfectly savage, and delighted in nothing but blood 
and carnage. He was half white French and half Indian. The 
Mingoes refused the Dunmore Treaty. Logan County is named 
for this chief and Mingo for his tribe. Logan's family had been 
killed in his absence without provocation. There is no doubt in 
my mind of the genuineness of this speech. 

The Virginia forces were commanded by General Charles Lewis, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



61 



whose descendants from that day to this have been prominent peo- 
ple in affairs of the state, including Hon. Virgil A. Lewis, of Point 
Pleasant, the author of a history of West Virginia; C. C. Lewis, 
of Charleston; Major B. S. Thompson, of Huntington. General 
Lewis was killed in an open fight, while leading his men at Point 
Pleasant, in 1774, October 10th. 

This battle was two years before the Declaration of Indepen- 
dence, and was an American victory, being fought by American 
pioneers, and not aided by British. While it was in no way related 
to the Revolution, the experience and training obtained was of 
great advantage. The men who fought in the Point Pleasant cam- 
paign fought in the Revolutionary War. Col. Andrew Lewis, who 
was also at this battle, drove Lord Dunmore from Virginia soil 
when the Revolution began. 

Ten of the captains in the Battle of Point Pleasant were officers 
in the American Army of the Revolution. In this enterprise was 
also General Daniel Morgan, the hero of Quebec and the Cowpens, 
1781. In this battle and in Dunmore's War were gathered the men 
who carried American institutions west of the Appalachian Moun- 
tains. They met at this battle and conquered about an equal num- 
ber of the most redoubtable of all savage foes, and infused new 
vigor into the two chief forces of future history — American expan- 
sion and nationalism. 

The army which fought the battle congregated at Lewisburg, 
then Fort Union. The crushing of New France, of which this ter- 
ritory west of the Alleghenies was claimed to be a part, had not 
resulted in rest or safety to the pioneers who were restlessly push- 
ing westward. The aboriginal hunting grounds were, after this 
battle, and especially after the Revolution, converted first into 
their own game walks and then into farms. These frontiers were 
the line of contact of two irreconcilable races; real and lasting 
peace could not come until one had forever vanquished the other. 
The Indian titles or claims to titles between the Alleghenies dis- 
appeared with the Indian treaties of about the date of Stanwix 
and Lochabar of 1770, which fixed their boundaries at the Ken- 
tucky River. 

This battle was fought and terminated Dunmore's War, which 
preceded the Revolution by two years. Logan charged Captain 
Cresap with the murder of his kin at Yellow Creek. Daniel Great- 
house had killed some Indians at the mouth of Yellow Creek, near 
Baker's house, after plying them with whiskey. They were nearly 
all murdered. The Indians that Cresap had killed were above 



62 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Wheeling Creek near Wheeling, or at Captina. Cresap was respon- 
sible for the Yellow Creek killing., but not for the Yellow Creek 
massacre. The Indians were terribly exasperated by these kill- 
ings by Cresap, Greathouse, and other frontier murders, and it 
seemed that they were determined on a general border war. The 
facts were all communicated to the Governor of Virginia, who 
sent Andrew Lewis, then a member of the House of Burgesses from 
Botetourt County, to consult about a plan of campaign. It was 
decided that an army of two divisions should be organized ; one to 
be commanded by Lewis, the other, by Lord Dunmore in person. 
General Andrew Lewis and his brother, Colonel Charles Lewis, then 
also a member of the House of Burgesses from Augusta County, 
started at once to the Valley of Virginia to get together their 
armies from the counties of Augusta, Botetourt and Fincastle, this 
territory being then included in Fincastle County, and the forces 
of Dunmore were to be raised in Frederick and Dunmore Counties, 
now Shenandoah, and adjacent territory. The governor despatched 
Daniel Boone and Mile Stoner to Kentucky to notify all the people 
in that section. Captain John Stuart, from the Greenbrier, des- 
patched two runners, Philip Hammond and John Pryor. Lewis' 
army congregated at Lewisburg, then Fort Union, and was to 
march from thence to the Kanawha, while Dunmore went over 
Braddock's Trail by way of Fort Pitt down the Ohio River, and 
was to form a junction with Lewis at the mouth of the Kanawha, 
which junction was never formed, and Dunmore and his army did 
not participate in that fight. The army of Lewis was made up as 
follows : First, a regiment of Augusta troops under Colonel Charles 
Lewis, the captains being Geo. Mathias, Alexander McClanahan, 
John Dickinson, John Lewis, Benjamin Harrison, William Paul, 
Joseph Haynes and Samuel Wilson. Not a man in that company 
was under six feet in height. Second, the Botetourt regiment was 
under Colonel William Fleming. The captains were Mathew Ar- 
buckle, John Murray, John Lewis, James Robertson, Robert Mc- 
Clanahan, James Ward and John Stuart. Third, an independent 
company of seventy men under Colonel John Field, raised in Cul- 
pepper County. Fourth, the force under Colonel William Christian 
consisted of three independent companies under Captains Evan 
Shelby, William Russell and Herbert from the Holstine, Clinch 
and New River settlements, then Fincastle County. A company 
of scouts, under Captain John Draper, of Draper's Valley, and an 
independent company of Captain Thomas Buford, of Bedford 
County. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



63 



The aggregate strength of Lewis' army was 1,100. The strength 
of Dunmore's division was 1.500. General Lewis left Lewisburg 
on the 11th of September with Captain Mathew Arbuckle, a great 
frontiersman, as pilot, and marched through the boundless wilder- 
ness, making such roads as was necessary for their pack horses, 
ammunition and provisions and their beef cattle. Their route was 
by Muddy Creek, Keeney's Knob, Rich Creek, Gauley Bridge, 
Twenty Mile. Bell Creek and Kelley's Creek to the Kanawha, and 
down the Kanawha to its mouth, following the Indian trail at the 
base of the hills instead of along the river bank. They reached 
Point Pleasant on the 30th of September, after a march of nineteen 
days. At the mouth of Elk River the army stopped long enough 
to build some canoes by which to transport their packs, and took 
the remainder of the way from there by river. 

Four men who had made a daylight hunting excursion up the 
Ohio River bank from the Point on the morning of the 10th were 
attacked by the Indians, one of whom, Hickman, was killed. They 
were members of Captain Russell's and Shelby's companies, and 
Captain Buford was present and wounded during the day. The 
army was not abundantly fed : it was gotten together in great 
haste, and was not well clad. They had no spirits, no rations, and 
neither tea nor coffee, but they were in good health and spirits, 
though tired and worn by the hard march through the wilderness. 

Lewis waited several days for Dunmore to join him, but that 
gentleman seemed to be indisposed to render aid to the American 
soldiers under Lewis, and had camped on the other side of the Ohio 
in front of the Indian towns there. The messengers and scouts of 
Dunmore were McCullock, Kenton and Girty. Lewis received no 
communication from Dunmore. and fought this battle without any 
aid from him whatever. It has been suspected that Dunmore, 
whose sympathy was with the English, being a' titled nobleman, 
was not anxious to see the success of Lewis' troops. 

There were eight hundred Indian braves in the army which 
attacked Lewis. They were in command of Cornstalk, Red Hawk, 
Blue Jacket and Elinipsico, and, some claim, by Logan, also. It 
was a desperately contested fight. No official report of this battle 
was probably ever given. The fight continued all day. Many of 
the officers were killed, including Colonel Charles Lewis, John 
Field, John Murray, R. McClanahan, Samuel Wilson. James Ward; 
Lieutenant Hugh Allen. Ensigns Cantiff. Bracken, and forty-four 
privates. Total Americans killed, fifty-three. There were eighty- 
three of the Americans wounded, including Col. William Fleming, 



64 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Captain John Dickinson, Thos. Buford, Skidman; Lieutenants 
Goldman, Robertson, Lard and Vance, and seventy-nine privates. 
Total wounded and killed, 140 Americans. The Indians fought 
with great bravery, and their loss was never fully known. The 
battle terminated at night. I do not undertake to go into the 
details of this very important battle. Those desiring a full detail 
of this fight would do well to consult Professor Virgil Lewis' His- 
tory of West Virginia, Dr. Hale's Trans-Allegheny Pioneers, Judge 
Johnston's Middle New River Settlements and Dunmore's War, 
published by the Wisconsin Historical Society; also Colonel Pey- 
ton's valuable History of Augusta County. Colonel Stuart, who 
was a captain in this fight, wrote a detailed account of the same 
ten years afterwards. There are many different accounts of this 
battle. Probably the most authentic is that of Captain Arbuckle, 
who was left in command after the army broke camp. All writers 
claim the loss of the Indians was more than that of the whites, 
but this is doubtful. The Indians who were not buried were left 
on the field to pollute the air until the birds and animals disposed 
of them. Not one of the Indian leaders was killed, although they 
fought with great bravery. This fight terminated the Dunmore 
War and gave the settlers in all this region greater security from 
the Indian savages. 

THE NAMES OF SOME WHO HAVE DESCENDANTS IN 

THIS SECTION. 

Jacob Pence was an ensign in Captain Paul's Company of 
Augusta Volunteers in the Battle of Point Pleasant. 

Members : Israel Meador, John Grigsby, John Goodall, James 
Alexander, James Miller, Geo. Harmon, Henry Cook. Thomas 
Maxwell was a scout in 1774 for ten days with Point Pleasant; 
John Kincaide, seven days scout; William Ferrell was at Glade 
Hollow Fort. 

-Michael Wood, in making his report to Colonel Preston in 1774, 
after giving a list of those within the bounds of Lick Creek for 
muster, says : 

"Also there is a few men that lives in a String on the other side 
of the River that ever will be unconvenient to any other place to 
Muster at for they would not have above 7 or 8 Miles to a Muster 
here ; and if they must go Elsewhere they Most of them Must Go 
15 or 20 Miles to Muster and the names of these is Charles Cava- 
nough, Philimon Cavanough, James Odear, Wm. Cavanough, Senr., 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 65 



Samuel Pack, George Pack, Charles Hays, Thos. Farlor, Francis 
Farlor, John P^arlor. Mitchle Clay, and some others that I do not 
know their names. 

"Also I must acquaint you that the most of these men is bad off 
for arms and ammunition and I believe Cannot get them.'' 

Dunmore's War, page 397. From report of Michael Wood, 29th 
February, 1774. 

The muster rolls of 1774 show names familiar to-day, and who 
have descendants in this region, and none others are attempted to 
be chronicled herein. 

Daniel Smith's Company. Fincastle County: John Kinkeid 
(Kincaide), David Ward, Jas. Scott. Anchelaus Scott, David Kin- 
caide, Benj. Jones. Wm. Xeal. 

Michael Wood's Company: Squire Gatliff, Geo. Sabe, Robert 
Willey, Thomas Willey. Thos. Farley, Francis Farley. John Farley, 
Mitch el Clay. 

Bank's Company, May 30, 1774: Wellington Adams, Parker 
Adams, John McCartney. Robt. Doceks. June 2, 1774 — Wm. Ward, 
John Maxwell. September 10. 177 A — Capt. Lewis, John Swope, 
James Ellison, James Charlton, Isaac Wichels, Robt. Bowles, Adam 
Caperton, Hugh Caperton, Mathias Kessinger, Wm. Mann. 

Buford's Company, Volunteers. Bedford County: James Boyd, 
John Cook. 

Stuart's Company : James Pauly. James Kincaide. 
Pauley's Company: Dudley Calloway, Robt. Ferrell, Charles 
Ellison. 

Shelley's Company: Wm. Brice. wounded. 



CHAPTER V. 



TOPOGRAPHY, GEOGRAPHY, ETC. 

The county lines as laid down by the original act of the Legis- 
lature, and set out in a former chapter. There being some question 
as to the line between Monroe and Summers, in 1887 the county 
court, in an irregular manner, undertook to dispose of the' same, 
and appointed a commission, composed of William Haynes on the 
part of Summers County, and Monroe County appointed John 
Hinchman its commissioner, who selected James Mann, of Green- 
brier, as an umpire. While these proceedings were irregular, the 
lines as laid out by these commissioners have been adjudicated, 
and are now recognized at this day as the legal lines between those 
two counties. The result of these proceedings was to establish 
the lines as now existing. The action of this commission only 
applied to Monroe County. 

In the year 1894 there was complaint in regard to the uncertainty 
of the countv line between Greenbrier and Summers, and John E. 
Harvey, then county surveyor of Summers County, was directed 
by an order of the county court, to run the line between Greenbrier 
and Summers, which he did, and from which it was ascertained 
that the lines laid down by the act of the Legislature were not 
those which were recognized between the two counties ; Summers 
not exercising full jurisdiction over all the territory included in- the 
formative act. The county court thereupon took steps to have 
the lines between this county and between Monroe and Summers 
settled in the manner provided by statute, and entered an order 
directing the prosecuting attorney, who was the writer at that time, 
to take legal action under the law to have the dispute then exist- 
ing in regard to the location of said lines settled between those 
counties, as well as to have a correct line established. No survey 
of the line having been made since the formation of the county, 
it is doubtful if the line now established as the Summers County 
line between it and Greenbrier had ever been run ; but it was 
adopted by protraction by Mr. Hinton, John Cole and Judge Fur- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



67 



geson, during the session of the Legislature when the Act was 
passed creating Summers County. The lines as laid down in the old 
Legislature included the town of Alderson, in Monroe County, a 
thriving town of some 1,200 people, and the town of North Aider- 
son, Greebrier County, a village of some 500 people; and had Sum- 
mers County succeeded in holding to the territorial limits of the 
Act of the Legislature creating the county, it would now include 
and have jurisdiction over the people of those two towns, as well 
as a considerable territory extending over into the Meadows and 
near the Muddy Creek settlement. 

The claim set up by Summers County stirred up the people 
of the counties of Greenbrier and Monroe, especially those parts 
in the disputed territory and in, the immediate region thereof, to 
a high degree. Some of the people, however, within the disputed 
territory, and a very considerable proportion, desiring to have their 
allegiance transferred to Summers, by reason of its fair and ju- 
dicious, as well as its economical conduct of municipal affairs, and 
the convenience of getting to the Court House by rail. Others 
opposed the transfer very vigorously, one ground of opposition 
being a matter of pride in their old counties, in which they had been 
born and reared, and that the municipal affairs of those counties 
were honestly and judiciously administered, all of which were 
matters of just pride. Those outside of the disputed lines, of 
course, objected, as it would decrease the taxable values and in- 
crease the burdens of taxation as to the remaining taxpayers. 

Jas. H. Miller, then prosecuting attorney, on the 20th day of 
February, 1894, filed a petition and instituted proceedings in the 
County Court of Monroe County, for the settlement of the dispute 
and for the appointment of commissioners, and in 1894 proceeded 
likewise in the Circuit Court of Greenbrier County. Hon. A. N. 
Campbell was then Judge of this Circuit and of those counties, as 
well as Summers. Messrs. M. Gwinn, J. B. Lavender and M. A. 
Manning were appointed for Summers to settle the line between 
Summers and Greenbrier ; and M. Gwinn, J. B. Lavender and S. K. 
Boude (who died, and M. A. Manning was substituted), as com- 
missioners to adjust the disputes between Summers and Monroe. 
On the part of Monroe, Cornelius Leach and Surveyor McPherson 
were appointed as commissioners, and on the part of Greenbrier, 
Wm. M. Tyree and Samuel Gilmer and Austin Burr were ap- 
pointed. 

When it came to the matter of a hearing, Judge Campbell de- 
clined to sit in the cases, as he was interested as a taxpayer of Mon- 



68 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



roe County, and at his request Hon. A. F. Guthrie, then Judge 
of the Kanawha Circuit, was secured to act in his place. The 
hearing in both cases came on by agreement to be heard at Lewis- 
burg, at which time the petition as to Monroe County was dis- 
missed by the court, and also as to Greenbrier County; but an ap- 
peal was taken to the Supreme Court of Appeals, which was de- 
cided favorable to Greenbrier and Monroe as to holding that the 
appeal was improperly taken as on points reversing the Circuit 
Court, or rather deciding the case on matters not raised before 
the Circuit Court, or in any of the proceedings, and that commis- 
sioners should be appointed, the Circuit Court having refused to 
appoint commissioners to operate with the commissioners selected 
from Summers. 

Hon. A. B. Fleming, ex-Governor of the State, was agreed upon 
as umpire, and he agreed to serve ; but after waiting for several 
months, his business engagements being such that he had been 
unable to act, an agreement was finally reached between the va- 
rious commissioners and attorneys, by which the Hon. George E. 
Price, an excellent and accomplished attorney of Charleston, West 
Virginia, was agreed upon. And the commissioners finally meet- 
ing at Alderson, the trial of the matters and disputes came 
on to be heard at Alderson in April, 1897. The hearing took 
several days, a number of witnesses being summoned on each 
side. The attorneys representing Summers County in these cases 
were the writer and Mr. T. N. Read, Assistant Prosecuting At- 
torney. The attorneys representing Monroe County were John 
Osborne and Gilmer Patton, Prosecuting Attorney of that county ; 
for Greenbrier County, Henry Gilmer, who was Prosecuting At- 
torney at the time of the institution of the proceedings, and had 
associated with him Hon. L. J. Williams, of Lewisburg. Mr. Gil- 
mer having retired from office before the final trial, and being suc- 
ceeded by Hon. J. A. Preston, of Lewisburg, he and Mr. Williams 
represented the interests of Greenbrier County. The Prosecuting 
Attorney of Summers County had, prior to his death, received 
from P. B. Stanard, a young lawyer of Hinton, who had volun- 
teered his services, some assistance. Mr. Read never had thor- 
ough confidence in the success of the undertaking, by reason of 
the long lapse of time; the writer had great confidence therein, and 
believed that Summers County was entitled to the territorial lim- 
its according to the solemn Act of the Legislature establishing- the 
county. 

After several days occupied in this trial a decision was reached, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



69 



each of the attorneys having argued the case at length. Each of 
the commissioners of Summers County voted in favor of its con- 
tention, and each of the commissioners of Greenbrier County vot- 
ing in favor of its retaining possession of the disputed territory. 
The umpire decided in favor of Greenbrier County, and held that 
Greenbrier County should retain possession of the disputed ter- 
ritory, and that the line which had been recognized since the for- 
mation of the county, although entirely different from the one laid 
down in the Act of the Legislature, should be and remain as the 
county line between those counties. No further action was taken 
in the Monroe County case, as the decision in the Greenbrier 
County case practically settled both disputes, and there was no 
appeal from the decision of the commissioners. 

This decision may be law, but it is inequitable and unjust. The 
commissioners voted for their respective counties, and the umpire 
decided it. So that Summers County to-day is not occupying all 
of the territory granted to it from Monroe and Greenbrier Coun- 
ties in the Act which created it. However, in running the recog- 
nized line, Summers ganed a narrow strip of additional territory 
between the point at "Wallowhole Mountain" and Greenbrier 
River, and a few residences were cut off to Summers which had 
theretofo. e been recognized as located in Greenbrier County. So 
that Summers, by the loss of this territory, has not now within 
its limits the 400 square miles required by the Constitution; but 
it has no remedy, as it slept on its rights by permitting the lapse 
of a long period of time between the date of its formation and the 
date of calling the matter in question. Summers County was de- 
feated upon the grounds, as announced by Mr. Price, the final ar- 
bitrator, that the old line having been acquiesced in for a great 
many years, Summers County could not, after this lapse of more 
than twenty years after its formation to the date of the institu- 
tion of the proceedings, come in and take a disputed territory. It 
having recognized the present lines during all those years, could 
not come in and disturb the existing conditions, although the stat- 
ute of limitations was not applicable to the case. There was no 
appeal from this decision, and the matter thus ended. 

The long lapse of time was the one question of which the at- 
torneys for Summers were fearful, and this only defeated us. It 
was only by accident that it was discovered that we did not have 
jurisdiction over our full territory, and this grew out of the un- 
certainty as to where the people in the adjacent recognized lines 
should send their children to school ; and it was for that reason 



70 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



that Mr. Harvey, the Surveyor, was authorized by the County 
Court to survey the line between Greenbrier and Summers; and 
in order to locate that line properly, it was necessary for him to 
run from New River, on the Fayette County line, to the top of the 
Wallowhole Mountain ; thence to Greenbrier River, and thence 
the line between Monroe and Summers, to the Round Bottom, on 
New River. 

Having gone on a tangent, we will now proceed with the sub- 
ject of this chapter, however, in an irregular and divergent man- 
ner. 

Summers is almost exclusively an agricultural county ; its sur- 
face is mountainous and table-land. The bottom land is largely 
confined to the New River and Greenbrier River valleys, with 
some flat land on the large creeks, there being some very fertile 
and good, productive bottom lands on Lick Creek, in the Green 
Sulphur Springs neighborhood ; also, in the Wolf Creek valley, 
Bradshaw's Run, Indian Creek and Bluestone. The valleys are 
narrow, the soil underlaid with sandstone ; there being very little 
limestone in the county, although there is some in the hills near 
Hinton — "bastard" limestone — and some in the Talcott district, 
adjacent to the Monroe County line, and possibly a little in For- 
est Hill. No part of the county can be designated as blue grass 
or limestone territory. 

There is a very fine quarry of sandstone at New Richmond, 
on the John A. Richmond homestead farm, which was developed 
and used by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company for a num- 
ber of years, for which they paid $50.00 per annum royalty to Mr. 
Richmond. The stone was secured from this quarry through Dr. 
Samuel Williams and W. K. Pendleton, which was placed in the 
Washington Monument at Washington, D. C, and which is known 
as the West Virginia stone, upon which is inscribed the following 
patriotic inscription: "Tuum nos sumus monumentum." 

The stone from this quarry was used in the construction of the 
extensive grain elevators at Newport News; but the quarry has 
been abandoned for the last few years. Two quarries of very fine 
brownstone have been developed in the county, opened up, and a 
considerable amount of stone shipped to foreign markets for com- 
mercial purposes. The stone is very substantial, and is of a beau- 
tiful red brown color. The basement of the brick Methodist 
Church in Hinton, as well as the foundation for the Kanawha Val- 
ley Bank at Charleston, are built of this stone, secured from the 
quarry at Tug Creek. One of these quarries is located on Grif- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 71 



nth's Creek, in the upper end of Talcott district, about two and a 
half or three miles from the town of Alderson. and is owned by the 
Alderson Brownstone Company, a joint stock company, composed 
principally of capitalists residing at Richmond. Virginia. 

Dr. W. L. Barksdale, now of Hinton. then of Alderson, was 
one of the principal promoters of this enterprise, and is still one of 
the principal stockholders and an officer of the company, and 
largely through his and Judge AY. G. Hudgins' enterprise the com- 
pany was formed. The stone was transported from the quarry to 
the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad by means of a narrow-gauge 
railroad, laid with steel rails, crossing Greenbrier River by boat, 
on which the cars were run. Xo business in the way of quarrying 
and shipping stone from this plant has been conducted for sev- 
eral years, the work having been abandoned by reason of the ex- 
pensive transportation facilities. T. D. Crump, Esq., of Richmond, 
Va., was the president of the company, and Mr. Wm. Houseby, 
who still resides on the premises, general manager. T. N. Read, 
Esq., the Hinton attorney, was at one time a clerk for this com- 
pany on Griffith's Creek. 

The other quarry is located about a mile and a half below Hin- 
ton. on the hill above Tug Creek, and is now owned by Mr. M. N. 
Breen. The company which operated it a few years ago was a 
Kentucky joint stock corporation, of which Mr. Charles McDon- 
ald, of Covington. Ky.. and Mr. Scanlon, of Indiana, and one" Mr. 
Thornton, also of Indiana, were the chief owners and promoters. 
They placed in the plant very extensive and expensive machinery 
for quarrying and manufacturing the stone. They operated a saw, 
by which the rough stone was sawed into any desired sizes and 
shapes. The stone was used for building, ornamental sidewalk, 
paving and other purposes in Hinton. but not extensively : the 
principal part of the product being shipped, by way of the Chesa- 
peake & Ohio Railway, to foreign markets in the large cities of the 
.United States. The stone was quarried in the rough near the top 
of the hill, and let down Tug Creek by steel tramway or incline 
several hundred yards long, by wire cables operated by steam en- 
gines and drums. 

Mr. Charles McDonald, of Covington, Ky.. the principal owner, 
becoming financially involved, the plant having cost about $75,000. 
the property was sold under legal process for debt and taxes, and 
the lands, consisting of about 100 acres, were purchased by Mr. 
Breen for the nominal sum of $50, and he is now the owner. Mr. 
R. R. Flanagan, of the city of Hinton, lost about $1,500 by the 



72 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



collapse of this enterprise, having become an accommodation en- 
dorser for Mr. McDonald. 

The county is naturally a very rough and broken country, 
mountainous, with high and rocky hills and deep and rough ra- 
vines, with considerable uplands or plateaus; and while the 
county is rough and broken, mountainous and rocky, a very large 
proportion of it is in cultivation, and the inhabitants are scattered 
all over the mountains and hills, steep mountains and hillsides 
being in cultivation, which, to a Western farmer, would seem en- 
tirely impracticable and unprofitable. 

The principal products of the soil are Indian corn, wheat, some 
rye, some buckwheat, potatoes, oats and grass. There are no 
developed mines in the county at this time, and no minerals of 
value have been discovered. There is no coal opening in the 
county except on the Flat Top region and on the White Oak 
Mountain, and in proximity to the Raleigh and Mercer County 
lines. There is evidence of coal in this section, and some veins 
have been opened, but not worked. The nearest coal mine in oper- 
- ation is at Quinimont, in Fayette County, a distance of some 
twenty-one miles. There is also some coal on the Hump Mountain, 
very high up, near the top. 

There have been two wells drilled in the county prospecting 
for gas and oil — one on Crump's Bottom, which was drilled to a 
depth of about 3,000 feet, and in which gas was found in consid- 
erable quantities. The well was drilled by Philadelphia and Penn- 
sylvania capitalists, who owned it, and it has been plugged ever 
since its completion, which was some fifteen years ago. The other 
well was drilled on Riffe's Bottom, on the farm of the Hon. M. M. 
Warren, to a depth of 2,100 feet. This well was drilled by a local 
joint stock company, of which Mr. Warren was the president, and 
Jas. H. Miller was secretary and treasurer. A contract was made 
with a man by the name of Caverly to place the well at $1.45 a 
foot. Caverly went down to the depth of about 2,000 feet, 
and becoming dissatisfied with his contract, although he had been 
paid all that was due him, he surreptitiously filled the hole with 
scrap iron and left the country, and has never been heard of from 
that time. It was the intention of the projectors to drill the well 
3,000 feet. Additional money was raised and a new contractor se- 
cured, who spent some $2,000 in attempting to clear out the whole 
so as to proceed with the work. He never succeeded, and the 
hole was abandoned and the machinery sold out under a deed of 
trust. In drilling this well, fine sulphur water, similar to the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



73 



Pence's Spring sulphur water, was discovered, and also some gas ; 
but, so far as the interested parties know, there were no indications 
of oil. This sulphur spring is intermittent, flowing between cer- 
tain hours each day. 

There is what is called a "burning spring" on Madam's Creek, 
about two miles from Hinton, and also one on Beach Run, about 
one mile from Hinton. Experts claim that the indications are fa- 
vorable for the discovery of oil and gas in this county, but none 
has to this time been found for utility purposes. At these two 
burning springs, when the water is cleaned out, the gas will burn 
by igniting it with a lighted match. One of the burning springs 
is now owned by Dr. J. F. Bigony — that on Madam's Creek. It is 
located near the old J. J. Charlton Mill ; and the other is on the land 
of Benton and John W. Parker. 

The principal mountains of Summers County are Keeney's 
Knob, which is a spur of the Allegheny Mountains, and was named 
after David Keeney, who settled at its base, and its top was the 
county line between Greenbrier and Monroe before the separation. 
The highest point on this mountain is on the county line between 
Summers and Greenbrier, and known as "Stinson's Knob" (the 
correct name being Stevenson's Knob, it being thus named after 
an early settler near Clayton, by the name of Stevenson). 

The next highest point is known as the Elk Knob, about nine 
miles from Hinton Court House, and is 2,500 feet above the level 
of the sea. Here lives Peter Wyant, a prosperous farmer. 

New River was a few years ago a fine fishing stream, and was 
celebrated for its "New River cat," of which there are none better, 
and the water therein was clear; but for the past ten years it has 
lost its prestige as a fishing stream by reason of its waters becom- 
ing always of a muddy, murky color, caused by the washing of 
iron ore in its waters or tributaries in Virginia, and without the 
jurisdiction of this commonwealth. State legislative action has 
been taken to enjoin the destruction of this stream, as well as 
Congressional ; but no efforts have been successful, so far, and its 
waters remain unrestored to their original purity. Large catfish 
are yet occasionally caught weighing thirty to forty pounds. 

Greenbrier River was named by John Lewis, the father of Gen- 
eral Andrew Lewis, who, in company with his son Andrew, while 
exploring the country in 1751, entangled himself in a bunch of 
green briers on the river margin, and he then decided that he would 
ever after call the stream "Greenbrier River." Greenbrier River 
runs through the county from the Monroe and Greenbrier lines 



74 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



below Alderson to Hinton, a distance of eighteen miles. The prin- 
cipal town on this river in this county is Talcott, a village of about 
300 population. 

Big Bluestone is the next largest stream, which flows into New 
River six miles south of Hinton. It is a rough mountain stream 
of considerable size, large enough for floating logs during fresh- 
ets, but not more than half the size of Greenbrier. On this stream 
was located the famous old water mill of Mr. Levi M. Neely, once 
owned by the Crumps. It is a burrh mill, with old-fashioned bolting 
clothes, and grinds the year around. Mr. Neely has been the 
miller for many years, and before he became the half-owner with 
ex-Sheriff W. S. Lilly, and is very popular with the people in that 
region. The mill has a large custom, by reason of its being able 
to run and grind the year around, the dry season -not affecting it. 
We are unable to give the date of the construction of this old land- 
mark, but it was many years before the Avar. At the head of this 
river are great coal deposits and operations in Mercer County. 

Bluestone runs from the Mercer County line through the county 
' to New River, probably fifteen or twenty miles. A railroad was 
about thirty years ago surveyed up this river, but abandoned. 
There is some talk of a branch of the Deepwater coming down 
that stream, but no surveys have been made to its mouth. 

About 1876, William James, of Pennsylvania, who afterwards 
became a citizen of this county, constructed an extensive boom 
and dam at the Charles Clark place, just above the mouth of Blue- 
stone. After using them for a number of years they were aban- 
doned and permitted to decay, as they moved their works down the 
river, and no indications now exist to show of the once enterprises 
being conducted there. A thriving industry at one time was car- 
ried on at the mouth of Bluestone, in the shipment of lumber, to- 
bacco, etc., all of which have been abandoned. 

Tom's Run empties into New River at the west end of Crump's 
Bottom, at the foot of Shockley's Hill. Lick Creek and Island 
Creek are the two principal streams in the upper end of Pipestem 
district, on which there are located good farms. The mouth of 
Lick Creek has been the site of mercantile establishments for forty 
or fifty years, principally conducted by Anderson Shumate, the fa- 
ther of the Hon. B. P. Shumate, then by his son Rufus H., and 
later by another son, Hon. B. P. Shumate, who owns the property 
and conducts a business at that point. Squire J. C. Peters con- 
ducted a store for the Shumates at that point for a number of 
years, and Jos. M. Meador, the present clerk of the County Court, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



75 



was merchandising at that place at the time of the election of J. 
M. Ayres as clerk of the County Court, when he became his dep- 
uty. He was merchandising in partnership with his uncle, B. P. 
Shumate. The name of the postoffice is Mercer Salt Works, named 
after the old salt-producing works of that name, a short distance 
from the river, which were destroyed and abandoned soon after 
"the war of the rebellion." Another postoffice was established 
some few years ago, some three miles from Mercer Salt Works, 
on the Lick Creek Hills, by the name of Tophet, which name would 
indicate a hot country. The Pipestem Creek empties into Blue- 
stone at its mouth, and extends back into the district, the head 
being a short distance from Pipestem Postoffice, the residence of 
Hon. B. P. Shumate. 

The principal streams in Forest Hill district are Indian Creek 
and Bradshaw's Run. Indian Creek runs into New River oppo- 
site Crump's Bottom, and on which are situated Indian Mills Post- 
office and Junta, Junta being at the mouth, and Indian Mills two 
miles and a half therefrom, at which are located two fine mer- 
chant grist mills. Bradshaw's Run empties into Indian Creek at 
Indian Mills Postoffice. Wolf Creek empties into Greenbrier River, 
and forms the district lines between Forest Hill and Greenbrier. 
Tom's Run also empties into the Greenbrier below the present resi- 
dence of the county surveyor, Andrew L. Campbell, as does also 
"Dog Trot." 

In Green Sulphur district the principal streams are Lick Creek, 
which heads in Keeney's Mountain, at a great spring, and is about 
* fifteen miles long, and on which are located some of the best farms 
in the county, and the Green Sulphur Springs, Eleber Spring, which 
was once a famous buffalo lick. This section was entirely settled 
by the Millers, Duncans, Withrows and Gwinns, more than 100 
years ago. Its principal tributaries are Mill Creek, on which the 
Hutchinson Mill is situated, and Slater's Fork and Flag Fork, 
these two latter emptying into Lick Creek at the old John Miller 
homestead. Slater's Creek is named after a man by the name of 
Slater, who settled in that region more than 100 years ago, but left 
no descendants, nor have we any traditions regarding him. 

Meadow Creek empties into New River about a half a mile 
above the Fayette County line. The Fayette line is now marked 
by a post painted white, the county line there calling to run from 
New River through the Goddard house. The old Goddard house 
has long since been destroyed, but the remains of a stone chimney 



76 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



designate its location. Laurel Creek empties into New River a 
mile below the falls, and has its source in Keeney's Knob. 

Summers County territory includes the whole of New River, 
and extends to the banks on the opposite or Raleigh side. Big 
Creek and Powley's Creek are tributaries of the Greenbrier, and 
empty into it about five miles above its mouth. Little Bluestone 
River is a tributary of Big Bluestone, and heads in the Flat Top 
Mountains. It empties into Big Bluestone some four miles from 
its mouth, and is a small stream, about the size of Lick Creek. 
Laurel Creek is in Green Sulphur district, and heads near the top 
of Keeney's Mountain. It is a very rough, turbulent stream, nearly 
equal in size to Lick Creek. The Laurel Creek valley is a narrow 
valley, settled by farmers, the Dicks being the earliest settlers. 
The principal incident of historical importance was the drowning 
therein of a man during the war by the name of Adkins. 

Captain Lorenzo D. Garten's company of Home Guards, an 
irregular organization of State troops, made an excursion during 
the war into the Chestnut Mountain country, ransacked the farm 
of Mr. L. M. Alderson, and others who lived on the mountain be- 
tween Lick Creek and Laurel Creek, in a low gap, carried away his 
horses, grain, bacon, bed clothes, overcoat, etc., as well as that of 
other farmers — Mr. Alderson being a rebel sympathizer. And on 
the return of these warriors, this man got on a horse behind 'Squire 
John Buckland, and undertook to ford Laurel Creek, the creek 
being out of its banks and unusually high from hard rains. The 
load being too much for the horse, he went down, and when he re- 
appeared one of the riders had washed off and was drowned. 

There is situate within this county numerous sulphur springs 
and mineral springs. On Beech Run, near Hinton, is a fine alum 
spring, from which water has been taken for many miles, and is 
used for medicinal purposes. There is situate on the Elk Knob 
Mountain, on the farm of Clark Grimm ett, a fine alum spring, 
from which he carries water to Hinton for the market. 

The celebrated Green Sulphur Spring is situated on Lick Creek, 
at the junction of Mill Creek Fork with that stream, and is owned 
by Mr. Harrison Gwinn. In the first settlement of that section, 
more than 100 years ago, the place where that spring is located 
was celebrated as a lick for deer, buffalo and elk. After the prop- 
erty came into the ownership of Ephraim J. Gwinn, the father of 
Harrison Gwinn, he undertook to drill for salt, believing that there 
was salt under the surface, which he proceeded to do with an old- 
fashioned process about eighty years ago, using what is known as a 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



77 



windlass. The process was very slow, but after proceeding indus- 
triously and persistently for a number of months, instead of strik- 
ing salt, he struck a fine stream of sulphur water, sixty-five feet 
below the surface. About twenty feet was through the soil, after 
which he struck, in drilling, hard sandstone. Into this hole, which 
was made some three feet in diameter, he sunk a large hollow syca- 
more tree, connecting with the hole through the rock, and the 
water comes through that tree to the surface, over which a stone 
basin has been erected. This tree has remained intact to the pres- 
ent time, and no doubt will remain until- eternity. A piece of the. 
timber taken from the bottom of this well in 1907 shows it to be 
as sound and harder than when placed there eighty years ago. 

Kesler's Sulphur Spring is a late discovery by B. L. Kesler, 
who secured fine sulphur water by drilling sixty feet at Lowell, 
on the old Wilson Lively place, near the C. & O. Ry. It is very 
strong of sulphur, and is celebrated wherever it has been intro- 
duced, quite a quantity now being shipped in bottles, and is being 
drank for medicinal benefits. The place has never been exploited, 
and no effort made to introduce it. 

The most celebrated spring in the county is the sulphur spring 
known as Pence's Spring, formerly Buffalo Spring, which is a fine 
sulphur water; and a great number of guests visit the place each 
year for pleasure, recreation and recuperative purposes. This spring 
was known from the first settlement of that region, more than 100 
years ago, and was then the resort for wild animals — buffalos, elk 
and deer — no attempt being made to advertise it until it came into 
the possession of Mr. A. P. Pence, who built, a few years ago, a 
commodious hotel, which is crowded every summer to its utmost 
capacity. This spring is owned by Mr. A. P. Pence. The tract of 
land on which it is situate contains 283 acres. Another hotel was 
erected in 1904, in the immediate neighborhood, by Messrs. Car- 
ney & Blair, two Charleston gentlemen, who drilled wells, 
which interfered with the flow of the water into the spring 
of Mr. Pence. Legal proceedings were resorted to, an injunction 
secured, which was recently determined by the Supreme Court of 
West Virginia, that the waters of that spring are waters percolating 
through the soil, and that adjacent land-owners have the right to 
drill wells on their own land and use the water therefrom for ordi- 
nary use and purposes, but not to interfere with the flow of the 
Pence Springs by extraordinary use of the water, or its use for 
unnecessary purposes. A second injunction was secured by Mr. 
Pence in 1907, and the suit is now pending. 



78 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Large quantities of this water are now being shipped to foreign 
cities and markets, it having peculiar curative powers for certain 
diseases, especially of the stomach and kidneys. It is situate about 
a quarter of a mile from Greenbrier River, near Pence Springs Sta- 
tion, on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, three miles from Lowell, 
and from the old settlement of Col. James Graham, made about the 
year 1770. 

The next most celebrated spring is that formerly known as 
Barger's Spring, after a former owner, Wm. H. Barger, the father 
of our townsman, the merchant, W. A. Barger. It is now owned 
by a joint stock company, incorporated as the Greenbrier Springs 
Company, purchased in 1903. In 1904 they constructed a 25-room, 
three-story frame hotel, which during the season of 1904 was well 
filled. A number of the stockholders, including Messrs. J. H. Jor- 
dan, H. Ewart Jas. H. Miller, A. E. Miller, T. N. Read, R. R. 
Flanagan, A. G. Flanagan, W. J. Brightwell, E. W. Taylor and 
W. L. Barksdale, have erected cottages on lots purchased by them, 
where they spend a portion of the summer. Thirty-two lots have 
been sold, to this time, to individuals. 

It is a beautiful location, immediately on Greenbrier River, 
near the famous Stony Creek Gorge, where Little and Big Stony 
Creeks empty into Greenbrier River, near the turn immediately in 
the rear of the Big Bend Tunnel, and at the base of the Big Bend 
Tunnel Mountain, and on which is situate the celebrated Turnhole. 
Stony Creek Gorge can not be excelled for the wildness of its natu- 
ral scenery. There is located a very high, steep, perpendicular 
cliff at the point between Stony Creek and the river; at the point 
of the cliff has grown a rugged, knotty pine tree. Many years ago 
a horse-thief, whose name has escaped the memory of the writer, 
had stolen a horse from some one in the region, and on being pur- 
sued by the neighbors, came to the, mouth of Stony Creek, and 
being in great apprehension of capture, abandoned his horse, 
climbed up this tree, scaled the cliff, and, reaching its top, made 
his escape. The pursuers recovered the horse, but were unable 
to overtake the thief, not being so agile as to undertake to scale 
the perpendicular cliff by so dangerous and precipitous a route. 
There is at this spring a beautiful stretch of water for boating, 
with two islands in midstream and a natural cave, which has been 
explored for some distance. This will in a few years, no doubt, 
be one of the celebrated pleasure resorts of this section of the 
country. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



79 



This property was the home of the Gardens, the father of 
Messrs. John M., I. G. and Allen Carden having owned the prop- 
erty many years ago, and upon which they were raised, it passing 
from the hands of these gentlemen into the hands of Wm. H. Bar- 
ger, then into the hands of the present owner. There is situate 
on the premises an old residence building — a log house — which is 
more than 107 years old. It is two-story, with an old-fashioned 
stone chimney at least eight feet wide, with a fireplace in the up- 
per story, and a wooden log arch of hickory wood. 

There is another sulphur spring within two miles of the Green- 
brier Springs, known as the Lindeman Spring, formerly owned by 
Dr. Eber W. Maddy, an old-fashioned dentist. The property is 
unimproved. There is also a sulphur spring in the upper end of 
the county, in Pipestem district, near the mouth of Island Creek, 
on the old Reed plantation. 

The Richmond Falls, situate sixteen miles west of Hinton, on 
New River, is one of the famous natural scenes of this country. 
The perpendicular fall of New River over these rocks is fifteen 
feet, and is immediately on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. The 
Raleigh side, with sixty acres of ground, was purchased by a gen- 
tleman residing in Philadelphia in 1872, for which he paid Mrs. 
Richmond, the widow of Samuel Richmond, deceased, and her two 
sons, Allen and "Tuck/' the sum of $15,000 in gold. At that time 
there was located on the property an old water mill, the house of 
which was built of hewn logs, and the log farm house. All the 
property has gone into disuse, and the gentleman who owns it has 
made no improvements thereon since his purchase, nor has he been 
disposed to part with the property, being a man of much wealth. 
The opposite shore or part of the falls is now owned by the same 
company which is operating the electric manufacturing plant at 
the Kanawha Falls, utilizing the water power therefrom, headed 
by Mr. J. Motley Morehead, a capitalist from North Carolina. 
These gentlemen purchased this property some three or four years 
ago, with the view of establishing a manufacturing plant ; but being 
unable to secure satisfactory transportation facilities, and not being 
able to acquire the opposite shore, they abandoned the project and 
went to Kanawha Falls. 

In constructing the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, materials were 
brought down Greenbrier River from the nearest accessible point 
on the river, from White Sulphur Springs, in batteaux, a channel 



80 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



having been made down the Greenbrier River. These batteaux 
also plied down New River, the materials having to be unloaded 
from the boats above the falls, and re-loaded below. Before the 
construction of this great railroad, all merchandise was hauled by- 
wagons and teams from the head of navigation on the Kanawha 
River, or from the Eastern markets from Buchannon, after the 
completion of the James River and Kanawha Canal, or from Staun- 
ton, Virginia. The writer can remember when the goods brought 
into Lick Creek or Green Sulphur Springs were hauled first from 
Kanawha Falls, a distance of seventy-five miles; and later when 
the railroad was completed to White Sulphur, they were hauled 
by wagons from that point, a distance of thirty-five miles. 

A small box of matches of about 100, in those days, which was 
about 1870, would cost ten cents; now you can get double the 
number of matches for a penny. A barrel of salt cost $9.00; now, 
$2.50 is a good price. Nearly all of the wearing apparel was manu- 
factured on the farms. The old-fashioned looms for weaving cloth, 
and spinning wheels for spinning the thread were still in use; the 
flax being skutched with skutching knives made from wood, some- 
what in the shape of a two-edged sword, with a board driven into 
the ground and the wool carded by wooden pads, with wires fas- 
tened into them. 

All meal and flour was ground by water grist mills, usually one- 
story log houses, with large overshot or undershot wheels, run al- 
together by water conveyed by a mill-race from a log dam con- 
structed across some stream. For many years after the settlement 
of this region there were no sawmills. All lumber and building 
material was sawed with a "whipsaw" or hewed with the broad 
axe. Later, water sawmills were built with the upright saw, and 
not until about 1874 or 1875 was there such a thing known in all 
the region as a steam saw or steam grist mill. There were in the 
early days but two mills in the Green Sulphur District; one, the 
old A. J. Smith mill, which later was known as Hutchinson's Mill, 
which ground corn and wheat and had a bolting cloth — a two-story 
house on Mill Fork of Lick Creek. The other was that of Samuel 
H. Withrow, a one-story log house, and ground only corn when the 
creek was not low in water, and the people for miles around came 
to these mills. The carding machines and water mills are things 
of the past. 

There is on Hunghart's Creek a perpendicular fall of thirty feet; 
near its head, not far from what is known as Spice Spring, a fine 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 81 



spring of chalybeate water, which is visited by many people anxious 
to see natural curiosities. 

There was a fort on Wolf Creek, known as Jarrett Fort, in which 
John Alderson, the pioneer Baptist preacher of this state, sheltered 
himself from the Indians when he first visited this country. 

At the falls of Griffith's Creek, which are fourteen feet perpen- 
dicular, there is a petrified root, which is a curiosity in that neigh- 
borhood. The shale has worn out by the fall of the water, expos- 
ing this apparently at one time the root of a tree. There are at 
different parts of it many pieces of glistening stone which have the 
appearance of eyes. 

John H. Ballangee, a few years ago, found a large vessel on 
Keeney's Knob made of some kind of earth and hardened, which 
was evidently used by some ancient race. It is something like a 
basin eight or ten inches in diameter, now in the hands of Luther 
S. Graham, of Hinton. 

Postage in the early days, and within the recollection of men 
now living, was twenty-five cents for a single letter, and all postage 
was paid at the receiving office by the person receiving the letter. 
The nearest post office from Green Sulphur and Lick Creek was 
Lewisburg, a distance of twenty-five miles ; afterwards, and until 
about the time of the war, the nearest post office for that region 
was Blue Sulphur Springs, some fifteen miles. The nearest post 
office to the Clayton neighborhood, where the Grahams settled, 
was Union, a distance of about twenty-five miles. Afterwards 
the post office at Palestine, on Muddy Creek, was established, some 
six or seven miles away, which remained the post office until the 
establishment of Alderson, and, finally, a post office at Clayton. 

David Graham, in the year 1843, made a trip on horseback to 
the Big Sandy country, in Kentucky, to visit his cousin. There 
were no roads, and only bridle paths to follow. He went by the 
way of Beckley, through Wyoming and Logan, staying all night 
with William Hinchman, a son of the English . settler at Lowell, 
who was born in 1770, and who was then the assessor for the region 
of country west of the New River, his territory extending from 
Logan to New River. It took Mr. Graham five days to make the 
trip, passing down Pigeon Creek to Tug River, and visiting his 
aunt on that stream. 

Another stream of historical importance is Joshua's Run, a 
small stream flowing into New River at Culbertson's Bottoms. It 
is mentioned in the early history of the New River settlements as 



82 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



where one of the forts was erected, and which was attacked by 
Indian savages. 

Bradshaw's Run. in Forest Hill District, which empties into 
Indian Creek at Indian Mills, was named after the Englishman 
who settled in a cabin on the present site of Thomas G. Lowe's 
residence. He was killed by the Indians near where he lived. 

Cave Ridge, in Tumping Branch District, received its name 
from the making of salt petre in a cave in said ridge in the early 
days. The cave passes from one side through the ridge, and the 
smoke made at one end of the cave would pass out at the other 
end. passing entirely through the mountain. . 

Bull Falls, the rapids at the lower end of Crump's Bottom, re- 
ceived its name from a bull swimming over the falls without being 
drowned. This falls has valuable water power, and has recently 
been purchased by Dr. J. A. Fox. of Hinton. for water power pro- 
ducing purposes, it being expected to utilize this power in the pro- 
duction of electricity for the operation of an electric railway be- 
tween Hinton and the Norfolk & Western Railway. 

Tames Gwinn was the first white child born in Monroe County, 
and in what is now Summers, after the massacre at the Levels. 
He died in sight of where his wife was born, on Lick Creek. Janu- 
ary 17. 1804. He raised twelve children. 

Ephraim J. Gwinn and wife. Rachel Keller, were born at Gra- 
ham's Ferry fat Lowell). He was born January 14, 1799. She- 
was born August 13. 1803. They were married April 11. 1822. 
He traveled overland to Wayne County, Iowa, and purchased land 
for his children to settle on, except two — H. and M. — who retained 
the Lick Creek farm, and one daughter, who married Wm. T. 
Meador. the first president of the County Court of Summers County 
elected by the people. 

On Kishner's Run is situated the famous Chimney Rock, some 
twenty feet high. On Suck Creek, in Jumping Branch District, 
there are two of these famous rocks known as the Chimney Rocks. 

THE ICE CAVE ON JUMPING BRANCH. 

The ice cave on Jumping Branch Creek is one of the wonders 
of Summers County. It is situated in a dense pine forest on Jump- 
ing Branch, between that village and Little Blue Stone. The per- 
sons who were familiar with it in earlier days of the county report 
that ice was found in abundance in mid-summer in the hot days, 
and the atmosphere cold. It was visited by numerous picnic par- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



83 



ties, and was a place of celebrity, but in later years the pine forests 
were destroyed, and with it the ice cave. It did not seem to be a 
cave really, but was at the rapids and roughs of the branch in the 
dense forest where the sun never penetrated, and ice accumulated 
there in the winter time and remained there in the summer. 

Near the head of Hungart's Creek, at a place known as the 
"Bear Hole," flat, there are indications of great natural convulsions 
ages ago ; the solid rocks were severed 300 feet long and fifty feet 
perpendicular. The rocks stand thus ajar and apart with a space 
of two feet between them. 

The Stony Creek Gorge shows like evidence of great natural 
convulsions, as do a great many other places on the surface of the 
rough and mountainous territory of the county, occurring ages in 
the past, in the formation of the surface of the earth. Evidence of 
these convulsions is at the mouth of Laurel Creek and near the 
mouth of Lick Creek, showing the parting of the great cliffs, as do 
places at different points on Xew and Greenbrier Rivers and in 
the mountains and great hills by which the county is largely cov- 
ered. 

Hungart's Creek was named for the first settler whose identity, 
like others of the oldest pioneers, has been lost. Among the first 
settlers in that region was Mathew Kincaid. Moses Hedrick and 
James Boon, descendants of whom are still living, scattered 
throughout that region. Kincaid owned the lands where Green L. 
Scott now lives ; also the John Willy farm and the Z. A. Woodson 
farm at the mouth of Hungart's Creek. Moses Hedrick sold and 
purchased from Kincaid the Scott place, and James K. Scott from 
Hedrick. The Miller farm was purchased from Kincaid by Mathew 
Lowe, and by him sold to A. J. Miller, and through him acquired 
by Mr. Willy. The Woodson place, a part of which Talcott is 
located on, and involved in the great "Talcott-Karnes' Case," was 
purchased from Kincaid. and James Boon occupied the upper left 
hand fork of the creek (Boon). John Boon, Andy Boon and Floyd 
Boon, sons of James, still live around there. James M. Boon and 
Hugh Boon are half brothers of John and the other boys. J. M. 
Boon now lives at "Woodrum Town,'' near Wiggins. He was one of 
the pioneer saloonkeepers at Talcott, but quit the business a long 
time ago. Hugh Boon was, in his younger days, a great hunter, 
and in the "days of the deer" in this region, killed them in great 
numbers, killing four in a day. He still hunted with an old-fash- 
ioned mountain rifle, dressed himself in a white suit, or fastened a 
sheet of white cloth over his body and walked through the moun- 



84 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



tains, dressed in white like the snow, so that he could get in good 
range of the deer, and in this way killed them in great numbers, 
until they were all destroyed. 

Taylor's Ridge, which runs down to the fork of Hungart's Creek, 
is named after a pioneer settler thereon by the name of . Taylor, of 
whom now there is no detailed tradition. Another old family on 
that mountain was Chris Dubois, of French descent, who lived at 
the top of the Ridge. This was probably Natliff Taylor who first 
settled on the Milburn Bottoms on Greenbrier River. 

Between the years 1769 and 1774 settlements were made by the 
Cooks in the Valley of Virginia on Indian Creek, one of their num- 
ber, John, being killed by the Indians; the Woods, on Rich Creek; 
the Grahams, on the Greenbrier; Keeneys, near Keeney's Knob. 
Wood's Fort was on Rich Creek on the farm owned by the family 
of John W. Karnes, four miles east of the present town of Peters- 
town in the county of Monroe. Snidow's Fort was in the upper end 
of the Horseshoe Farm on New River in what is now Giles County. 
The Hatfields built Hatfield's Fort on Big Stony Creek in the now 
county of Giles on the farm of J. L. Snidow, Richard Bailey, the 
son of the settler, in 1790, made the first settlement at the mouth 
of Widemouth Creek, on the Bluestone, a few miles above the Clay 
settlement, made in 1775. 

These men who first settled west of the Allegheny Mountains 
gave up the hope of wealth and abandoned ambition. They aban- 
doned the pomp and circumstance of other conceivable fame. There 
was no evidence in that day of the great business concerns, the 
exposure of so much meanness and unfairness among the corpora- 
tions and captains of industry, the bitterness and woe of oppres- 
sion, the desperation of despair wrought by untrue methods of 
business. It is restful and good to turn from all of that and con- 
template the career of these people. 



AN EARLY VIEW OP HINTON. 



CHAPTER VI. 



FIRST SETTLERS AND PIONEERS. 

The men who first settled this region came from the East, be- 
yond the Allegheny Mountains. They are among those who head 
the list for civilization, defiant of all the terrors, hardships and 
dangers that savage men and savage conditions could send against 
them, and never a helping hand did they ask from the federal 
government. Now the great barons of finance and civilization rely 
upon, depend upon and secure their support and protection by a 
constant appeal to government. 

Traders, trappers and hunters came and went ; individual daring, 
the spirit of adventure, the craving for excitement and the greed for 
gain forced the secrets of the wilderness, and gradually they spread 
ymong the people of the eastern and older communities a knowledge 
of the wonderful country west of the Alleghenies. 

The Horseshoe Knights of Virginia, who rode gallantly in the 
train of the imperial Governor Spottswood to the summit of the 
Alleghenies, and gazed from those heights westward upon the un- 
explored wilderness beyond, were thought to have done a notable 
deed. It was boasted of as the mariner of ancient times boasted 
of having carried his ship beyond the Pillars of Hercules, and for 
which he was rewarded by knighthood by his royal sovereign. 

The passes over the Blue Ridge and the Alleghenies are as 
prosaic nowadays as are the Straits of Gibraltar, but for many years 
after the golden spires of the Virginia-Carolinas had grown old, a 
veil of mystery and the spell of danger hung over the mountain 
ranges which separated the seaboard colonies from these western 
lands. The adventurers and pioneers were usually of that hardy 
stock who had emigrated from foreign lands beyond the sea, seek- 
ing personal and religious liberty. In those days it was the build- 
ing of a republic by the lovers of liberty. Congress had not then 
broken through the bands of the Constitution ; the miners and 
sappers of that Constitution had not then begun their work ; monop- 
olies had not then been fostered ; personal liberty had not then been 



86 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

curtailed; "government by injunction" had not been invented; the 
Philippine Islands had not been seized ; crown dependencies had 
not been secured, such as Porto Rico, and their subjection patterned 
after the laws that ruled the American colonies by Great Britain, 
prior to 1776; even sporadic assaults upon the principles of liberty 
had not then begun. The federal courts had not then commenced 
the incessant and silent deposits about the foundations of liberty, 
the bloody soil of monarchy, as now claimed by those who say they 
are building spires and minarets upon the Grecian temples of the 
Republic — that its walls have been disfigured, and that a moat has 
been dug about its entrances and fitted with secret passages and 
traps, and constructed cells below ground to complete its terrors. 
Our forefathers dreamed a practical, real Utopian dream of liberty 
and equality, when all men should have an equal chance in life, 
and for that the pioneers laid the foundations of an unequaled civi- 
lization on the face of the earth. They dreamed not of the. coming 
of the trusts, of the soulless corporations, the monopolies, of their 
aggressions by a fostering government, which, if permission be 
continued, will eventually invest all of the "reserve powers" of the 
government in the President. They believed that with liberty and 
equality the common man could live, and the able man could grow 
honestly rich. They treated liberty not as a formula, but as an 
actual thing; they treated the laws to be obeyed, and not to be 
evaded. 

The pioneers of this region were honest, God-fearing settlers, 
as is evidenced from all history, tradition and knowledge obtain- 
able, teaching those who followed them to follow in their own 
footsteps. There is scarcely a section or a neighborhood in this 
county wherein there are not descendants of these pioneers, and 
stronger or more loyal minds do not exist on the earth. 

It is impossible at this date and time to procure the names, his- 
tory or tradition of all, and possibly not nearly all of the frontiers- 
men who first located and settled in the sections of the territory 
now included in this municipality. 

The best that can be done is to preserve to posterity the names of. 
such as are ascertainable at this late day, more than one hundred 
years having intervened since the foundations were laid by civilized 
men in this part of the country west of the Allegheny Mountains. 
On Lick Creek, in Green Sulphur District, Curtis Alderson, Samuel 
and Robert Withrow, John and Robert Miller, Samuel Gwinn, John 
Duncan and John Hicks were among the earliest. On Laurel Creek, 
David, Joseph and John Dick, Joseph Bragg and James Cales. The 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



87 



Dicks, who settled on the immediate head of Laurel Creek, were 
from Wolf Creek Mountain, and were brothers of the wife of James 
Cales. There are descendants of each of these pioneers still re- 
siding on these creeks, though many have gone on west as civili- 
zation has advanced in that direction. On Griffith Creek and in 
Talcott District, Thomas Griffith, Joseph Graham and Stevenson 
were among the pioneers. On the Greenbrier River, Isaac Bal- 
lengee, Wm. Ferrell, Conrad Keller, James Graham, Samuel Gwinn, 
Jessie Beard, Jeptha Massey, Wm. Hinchman, Kincaid, Meadows, 
Rollyson and Fluke. On Little Wolf Creek Richard Woodrum 
early located, His son John married a daughter of Green Meador, 
of Bluestone. The descendants of the first settlers on Little Wolf 
Creek were John Woodrum, the father of Maj. Richard Woodrum 
and Harrison Woodrum, and the grandfather of C. L. and John 
Woodrum. On the Wolf Creek Mountain James Cales, a Virginian, 
located. His wife was a Dick, and he was the father of Archibald 
and James Cales and the grandfather of James and Archibald Cales, 
two of the worthy citizens now residing in that section. The Cooks, 
Farleys, Hughes and Ellisons, of Pipestem ; the Lillys and Mead- 
ows, of Jumping Branch; Ellisons and Packs, of New River region. 

The earliest land grant of which we have knowledge was for a 
tract of land in this neighborhood, which was' issued by Thomas 
Jefferson in 1781. The claim for this patent was laid in 1772, four 
years before the date of the Declaration of Independence. The 
first settlers of the Pipestem in New River country were the Cooks, 
Farleys, Packs and Bartons ; in the Bluestone and Jumping Branch 
country, the Meadows, the Lillys, the Hughes and Ellisons are the 
first known to history. 

William Graham, an uncle of David Graham, first settled on 
what is now known as Riffe's Bottoms, Colonel James Graham hav- 
ing first obtained patent for 400 acres. This fine bottom was 
acquired many years ago by David M. Rifle, a well-to-do farmer, 
one of his sons, Thomas Rifle, still owning a part of it, on which 
he resides. Another son of D. M. Riffe resides in Hinton — Jake 
A. Riffe, the founder, principal stockholder and general manager 
of the Hinton Department Company. He has been a merchant in 
Hinton for twenty- five years, and is one of the enterprising citizens 
of that town. M. A. Riffe, another brother, resides at Roanoke, 
Virginia, as does also Dr. A. L. Riffe, another brother. Another 
brother, Dr. J. W. Riffe, resides in Greenfield, Indiana. 

The town of Talcott is built on land at one time owned by 
Mathew Kincaid, whose wife inherited it as a descendant of the 



88 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Grahams. Griffith Meadows married one of his daughters. The 
Kincaid tract included a large boundary extending to the Graham 
settlement at Lowell. C. S. Rollyson owned a large boundary of 
land on the Big Bend Tunnel Mountain. Another of the old settlers 
was Michael Kaylor, on the Hump Mountain, which included a 
large boundary of the valuable land in that region where located. 
William and Lewis Gwinn owned large and valuable boundaries of 
land on New River, between Lick Creek and Meadow Creek. David 
Bowles also owned land on Hump Mountain. John B. Walker and 
William Dunbar early settled on the top of Swell Mountain, be- 
tween Laurel and Lick Creeks. Isaac Milburn early took up the 
valuable lands on the Greenbrier River, having married a daughter 
of Nortliff Taylor, below the mouth of Little W r olf Creek, where his 
descendants, Henry and Isaac, still reside. James Boyd owned land 
on Greenbrier River once owned by Charles and John Maddy, at 
the west portal of the Big Bend Tunnel, where his son, Benjamin 
Boyd, now resides. James Boyd was of a Monroe family, and 
married a daughter of William Pack. Thomas and Charles Gatliff, 
Frenchmen, were early settlers on New River. The Crump's Bot- 
tom was owned by a man by the name of Culbertson, and then by 
a man by the name of Reed, prior to the Crumps, Pattersons on 
Patterson Mountain ; Bradshaws on Bradshaw's Run, in Forest 
Hill ; Richmonds at New River Falls ; Gardens at Barger Springs ; 
Grimmetts on Grimmett's Mountain ; Bucklands on Big Creek and 
Powley's Creek. 

There were in the very earliest days families of Gills and Adkins, 
who inhabited the Laurel Creek, Chestnut Mountain, and around 
the mouth of Greenbrier, whose descendants still inhabit that 
country, who thrived and lived principally from natural sources, and 
are principally known for inoffensive thriftlessness. Life has be- 
come harder as civilization progresses, and the livelihood not 
obtainable from the forests and streams, the resources now requiring 
manual labor and intellectual activity. They seem to have mar- 
ried and inter-married without advancement — a harmless, shiftless 
race of people, with plenty of intellect unexerted and but little 
advancement has been made for generations. The old patriarch, 
John Gill, aged about ninety years, died some three years ago, a 
county charge. 

Mathew Lowe married Elizabeth Kincaide (the name was for- 
merly spelled Kinkaid), the father of John Lowe and J. Granville 
Lowe, enterprising farmers of Jumping Branch District, and the 
grandfather of the furniture merchants in Hinton, C. E. Lowe and 

o 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



89 



Clifford Lowe. Mathew Lowe owned and lived on the fine farm 
on Hungart's Creek, now owned by John Willey and once owned 
by A. J. Miller, a son of Brice Miller. He had three daughters, 
Eliza A., who married Anderson Wheeler. J. C. Wheeler and Rob- 
ert Wheeler were her sons, and Mrs. Waddell, of Madam's Creek, 
her daughter. Her second husband was Hon. Sylvester Upton. 
Another daughter of Mathew Lowe was Agnes, who married Peter 
Wyant, of Big Bend Tunnel, and another daughter, Rebecca, mar- 
ried Jordan Grimmet. 

Kincaide was a prominent man in the settlement of the country. 
Mathew reared a large family, having lived at the mouth of Hun- 
gart's Creek. Jane married Moses Hedrick, the father of Wm. C, 
Geo. W., John, Mathew and George, and his daughter Mary mar- 
ried William Wyant, of Pisgah Church. Susan married John 
Allen, son of Nathaniel Allen, who now lives in Mercer County. 
Moses Hedrick and his wife lived to a very old age, dying some 
eleven years ago. 

Florence Graham Kincaide married Isaac Tincher, and, after 
his death, married Thomas Holstein, who still lives on the Big 
Bend Mountain near Pisgah Church, and he is one of the solid, 
substantial farmers of this county. Mrs. Holstein is one of the few 
of Mathew Kincaide's children still living. It was out of the title to 
this land at Talcott the great suit of Karns vs. the Citizens of the 
Town of Talcott grew. The land was inherited by Kincaide's wife, 
and he made conveyances in which she did not join. After his death 
the Carries heirs sued, one of his (Kincaide's) children, Rebecca, 
having married Henry Karns, of Mercer County, whose heirs 
brought the suit. 

Lanty Graham Kincaide married Eliza Keller, a sister of George 
Keller, of Lowell, on the old Konrad Keller place. Emma, a 
daughter of Lanty Graham Kincaide, married Col. Wilson Lively, 
of Lowell. Nancy Kincaide and Susan married Griffith and William 
Meadows. Griffith Meadows once owned a lot of this land at 
Talcott, and it was he who took the deed from Mathew Kincaide 
without having the wife join. He was a prominent man in that 
region about the day of the formation of the county, was a justice 
of the peace, and now lives in Monroe County, an old man. His 
sons, Lanty and Rufus, live at Talcott, are well-to-do citizens, both 
employees of the C. & O. Railroad ; one, chief of the carpenter 
force; the other, Rufus H., the chief of iron bridge construction, 
one of the best in the land. 

Lanty Kincaide, a brother of Mathew, married a Scott and 



90 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



settled on Muddy Creek, but later moved to Lick Creek, in Sum- 
mers, where he died in 1850. John, a son of Lanty, lived and died 
on Lick Creek, on a farm now owned by James Sedley Duncan, a 
part of the old Banks-Schermerhorn patent. Two of his sons, 
Charley and Lewis, were Baptist preachers, and died in recent 
years. St. Clair Burdette, who lived to the age of 105 years, dying 
in 1906, married the daughter of John Kincaide, Octavia. 

Lanty Kincaide, Sr.'s, daughter, Rebecca, married William Gra- 
ham, a grandson of Col. William Graham. James Graham, the 
famous hunter and blacksmith, was her son. 

David, the youngest son of Joseph Graham, married Sarah J. 
Alderson, a daughter of James Alderson, ~a descendant of the pioneer 
Baptist minister west of the Alleghenies. E. D. Alderson, another 
of the descendants, is one of the best farmers in Talcott District, 
residing near the mouth of Hungart's Creek. He was a brave 
soldier in the Confederate Army, a Baptist and a Democrat. 

James Boon and James K. Scott on Boon's and Hungart's Creek; 
Culbertsons, Farleys and Packs on New River ; the Meadows, 
Lillys, Neeleys, Hughes and Cooks in Jumping Branch and Pipe- 
stem ; Brooks and Foxes, Bowles and Kalors on the Hump Moun- 
tain. 

The first school taught in Monroe County was in a round log 
house, the roof made of clapboards held down by ridge poles, with 
a puncheon floor. And those holding official positions have nearly 
invariably been the descendants of the old settlers, or the excep- 
tions, which are few, those who became permanent inhabitants, 
and not those people who landed on our soil, running for office. 
Those gentry were usually voted to take a back seat, and at least 
to get the dust of other regions shaken from their feet before enter- 
ing the lists for official spoils. This county has not had to go 
beyond its borders to seek for honest timber from whom to elect 
its officials, and in nearly each case the offices have been held by 
the descendants of the pioneer and natives of its soil, or from those 
who have become such, and it is none the worse off by its so being. 

C. R. Price is a native of Giles County, Virginia, and an "old 
Virginia gentleman," descended from an old and honorable family 
of Newport, Giles County, Virginia. He purchased Wildwood, the 
Dr. Fowler place, at the mouth of Indian, where he resided for 
several years, later locating on the John W. Wiseman farm on the 
New River Hills, between Wolf Creek and the mouth of Greenbrier. 
He was a brave Confederate soldier and fought through the Civil 
War, being wounded severely, which wound he carries to this day. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



91 



He represented Giles County for several terms in the House of 
Delegates of Virginia, and is now a patriotic citizen of the county. 
His sons, Wm. H. Price, the jeweler, and Thomas, the wholesale 
grocer, are citizens of Hinton, and Dr. Malcolm Price, another son, 
lives in Charleston. Mr. Price was a captain in the Civil War 
and made a brave and honorable record. 

Vanbibber settled at Lowell about 1775 or 1780, 

but sold his claim to Konrad Keller and moved on west. He was 
evidently a hunter seeking adventure, and later reached the Kana- 
wha. George Keller, a direct descendant, still owns and lives on 
this land. His only son, the Rev. Wallace Keller, lives in the same 
neighborhood, and his grandson, David Wallace Keller, is a mer- 
chant at Lowell. 

Samuel and James Gwinn came about 1780. They were from 
the Calf Pasture River. Samuel Gwinn married the widow Eliza- 
beth Graham, who was a Miss Lockridge, hence the name of Lock- 
ridge Gwinn, a son of "Squire" John Gwinn. 

Samuel Gwinn had five sons. Moses, Andrew, Samuel, John, 
Ephraim, and two daughters — Ruth, who married James Jarrett, 
Sr., the mother of the late Joseph and James Jarrett, two of the 
wealthiest men in Greenbrier County at their days. 

Samuel Gwinn moved from Lowell to Lick Creek in 1800, and 
died March 25, 1837, in the ninety-fourth 3/ear of his age. Hon. 
Marion and liarrison are his grandsons. He divided $12,000.00 
between his sons in silver before his death. Two of his sons, 
Samuel and Andrew, carried their distribution home across Keen- 
ey's Knobs in grain sacks, in bulk about half a bushel. He invited 
all his sons in on a certain day and made the division. The two 
named lived at Lowell and carried theirs to their homes as above 
stated, on a pack-horse through the mountains fifteen miles, when 
there were no roads, only a trail. Andrew Gwinn, of Lowell, is the 
grandson of this Samuel. 

James Gwinn, the other brother, settled on Keller's Creek on 
what is known as the Laben Gwinn farm. He died many years 
ago, before his brother. He left four sons, Robert, James, Joseph 
and Samuel. His son was appointed ensign by the first county 
court of Monroe. 

Joseph settled a mile above his father, and left John, Sylvester, 
James, Augustus and Joseph. J. Clark Gwinn and Geo. K. Gwinn, 
the merchants of Alderson, are sons of Augustus. 

Miriam Gwinn married J. W. P. Stevens, who was a very noted 
man, being a "schoolmaster." He wrote all the wills, deeds and 



92 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



legal papers of the region. He was called upon to count the $12,- 
000.00 which Samuel Gwinn divided among his sons, and to see 
that each son got his part. Three of his descendants still live, 
John and Joseph in Greenbrier, and Mrs. Geo. Alderson, wife of 
Hon. Geo. Alderson, at Alderson. 

Robert, son of James, Sr., settled at River View Church, and 
his son James, and his grandsons, Oliver, Ed (who was a very- 
large man, full of fun and wit, who was never married, and was 
killed by a falling tree), and William lived there after him. Also 
Addison R., of Wolf Creek. 

Samuel Gwinn, son of James, Sr., married Magdalene Johnson 
and settled on the James Boyd farm at Little Bend Tunnel, later 
owned by William and Charles Maddy, and later by James Boyd, 
and then by his sons, Richard and Ben R. 

Konrad Keller had four sons, Philip, John, Henry and David. 
Elizabeth married James Ferrell ; Rachel married Ephraim Gwinn, 
youngest son of Samuel. She died May 8, 1889, eighty-six years 
of age. Philip moved to Indiana. He and Madison married daugh- 
ters of Enos Ellis. David Keller, Sr., lived and died at Lowell. 
Henry was the father of George, who now lives on the old planta- 
tion. He died about eighty years ago, dropping dead in the harvest 
field while cradling wheat. Geo. Keller is now over eighty years 
of age, but remembers his father's tragic death. 

One took up a claim also at this place, but sold to Konrad 
Keller and moved on west, locating on the Big Sandy in 1818. 

Notliffe Taylor settled on the Greenbrier, where Henry Milburn 
now lives, and Isaac Milhurn, the ancestor, married his daughter. 
Nancy, another daughter, married William Johnson, of Johnson's 
Cross Roads, Monroe County. Elizabeth married Samuel Gwinn, 
Sr. Notliffe Taylor also owned land on Hungart's Creek, and no 
doubt Taylor's Ridge is named for him. 

William Kincaide first located and settled on the Jessie Beard 
place, Pence Springs. 

William Hinchman, about the close of the Revolution, settled 
near Greenbrier River. He was an Englishman, and is supposed 
to have been a British soldier, who, like many others, were tired 
of British rule, and after the Revolution determined and did locate 
in this country. His first location was below Gwinn's Branch, 
then he removed to the present Hinchman plantation across the 
present county line in Monroe, where his son and grandson, Wil- 
liam, lived and died. His great grandson likewise, and his great 
great-grandsons, John and Luther, now reside. It was his great 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



93 



granddaughters, Elizabeth, who married Capt. A. A. Miller, and 
Mary, who married Thomas Allen George, of Lick Creek. One 
son, William, of this pioneer, moved to Logan, whose descendants 
still live there, the Logan pioneers. He raised a family of twenty- 
four children, and they live there yet. The Hinchmans are promi- 
nent people. The inscription on the monument of the late John 
Hinchman at River View Church is as follows: "He died as he 
lived, a Christian." John Hinchman was a representative in the 
Legislature from Monroe County, a commissioner of the county 
court and a prominent man. His son, John, is president of the 
county court of that county. William Hinchman, the ancestor, 
was a justice of the peace and a ruling elder in the Presbyterian 
Church. 

The Ellis settlement at the mouth of Griffith Creek, known as 
the Enos Ellis place, is one of the oldest in the country, and is pos- 
sibly older than the Graham. It was near this place where Thomas 
Griffith was killed by Indians. 

Baily Wood had a cabin near the foot of Keeney's Knob, and 
also Martin McGraw, where A. H. Honaker now lives, but they 
never acquired title ; or, if so, sold out their claims before they had 
ripened into patent. 

William Withrow, the first known settler settled on what is 
now the Eades farm, a mile southeast of the Clayton post office, 
but moved away after a short residence. Peter Eades soon after 
acquired the property. He came from Albemarle County, Vir- 
ginia, and his descendants are still in the county. Mr. Al. Eades, 
a section master at Talcott ; Mrs. Lant Meadows, of the same place, 
and W. K. Eades, the merchant of Lowell, are descendants of this 
first settler, as was Joshua Eades, the carpenter, and Eades, the 
great bridge architect and engineer, who constructed the great iron 
bridge across the Mississippi at St. Louis, and the jetty improve- 
ments at the mouth of that river. 

A family of McGraw's also settled on Griffith's Creek at a place 
known as the Nowlan place. 

It is tradition that the first settler on the Flag Fork of Lick 
Creek, either James Butler or a man by the name of Sims, came 
into the region, planted out a "patch" of corn and went back across 
the mountains to bring his family ; and, on his return, the buffaloes 
had destroyed the corn, and he evidently had to begin over again, 
as his object was to secure a corn title. Thus Sims' Ridge, where 
John Hoke lives, gets its name. One of the oldest houses 
in all that region was a round log house two stories high, with 



94 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST 'VIRGINIA. 



wooden hinges to the doors and roof tied down by ridge poles, with 
a block between them, with a puncheon floor and chimney with a 
fireplace in which logs of a large size could be burned, ten feet 
long. This was the largest chimney ever known of in the country, 
but built out of small and thin rocks, evidently picked up in the 
branch. This house was lived in by a renter by the name of John 
Ellis with his mother, Peggy Ellis, a widow of a soldier in the 
War of 1812. They were from Monroe County. 

After it was vacated by them the house was so dilapidated that 
W. E. Miller, thirty-five or forty years ago, who owned it, pulled 
it down and burned the logs for firewood, but the chimney stood 
for many years after as a monument of the long past. It was a 
matter of general tradition that this chimney was built by a man 
and woman, the woman carrying the great mass of stone in her 
apron and the man placing them. 

Uriah Garten was one of the first settlers in the "Farms," and 
there is one of his descendants by the name of Elijah Garten living 
on the headwaters of Bradshaw's Run. He first settled in Spice 
Hollow, where Elijah now lives. Steven Davidson lives on a part 
of the plantation, having married one of his descendants. 

Alexander Hutchinson, the father of Major James Hutchinson 
and J. Mastin Hutchinson, settled on the place now owned by John 
Lowe on Bradshaw's Run, and he and his wife are buried on that 
farm. He was the grandfather of A. M. and Wellington. Hutch- 
inson settled there about 1790. 

The mouth of Hungart's Creek was settled in 1795 by David 
Graham, who married Mary Stodgill, on what is now known as 
the Woodson farm, which is owned by a Mr. Dickinson, who mar- 
ried a daughter of the late Zachariah Woodson. 

James Graham, Jr., settled in the Riffe Bottom in the year 1800, 
a part of which farm is now owned and occupied by the Honorable 
M. M. Warren, which property afterwards passed into the owner- 
ship of Mr. D. M. RifTe, and descended to his children, one of which 
is Mr. J. A. Rifle, now president and general manager of the Hin- 
ton Department Company. 

William Taylor, son of NotlifT Taylor, mentioned before, set- 
tled on Hungart's Creek, a mile north of Pence's Spring Station, 
on what is now known as the Bush place, the dwelling-house now 
occupied on this farm by Mr. C. E. Mann was built by William 
Taylor nearly 100 years ago. 

The settlement by the Grahams at the present Clayton settle- 
ment was in the year 1783, which is on the waters of Hungart's 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. - 



95 



Creek, where the said David G. Ballangee now lives. Early settlers 
in that community were also Bailey Wood and Martin McGraw, 
the location being on the farm now owned by Mr. Charles H. 
Graham. Wm. Withrow lived about a mile southeast of the Gra- 
ham place, which was afterwards occupied by Peter Eades and 
family, from Albemarle County. Virginia, and came there about 
the year 1830. 

About three miles from Clayton Post Office at this time lived 
a family by the name of Griffith, Thomas, the head of the family, 
having been killed by the Indians in 1780, and is the last recorded 
victim of the savages in this county. This place is now known as 
the Ellis place, and is occupied by the Ellis descendants. This set- 
tlement was probably before the Graham settlement at Lowell. 

The first settler on Wolf Creek was Richard Woodrum, the 
grandfather of Major "Dick" Woodrum and the father of John 
Woodrum and Armstrong Woodrum, who was the father of Rich- 
ard M. Woodrum, the merchant of Woodrumtown. Richard Wood- 
rum was the grandfather of the venerable Charles Garten, of For- 
est Hill District. 

Richard Woodrum, the grandfather of Major Dick Wood- 
rum, first settled on the "Turner Place," now owned by Oscar 
Hutchinson. Mr. Woodrum first made improvement on that grant. 
He was the father of John Woodrum, the father of Major Dick 
Woodrum. Armstrong Woodr-nm, the father of Richard M. Wood- 
rumat Wiggins, was a son of Richard the first, as was also Bud 
Woodrum, who emigated W r est; also W. C. Woodrum was a son of 
Armstrong. "Item" John Lilly, the assessor, sometimes men- 
tioned as "Gentleman John," married Ida Woodrum, a daughter of 
Richard Woodrum the first. One daughter, Polly, married William 
Campbell Hutchinson, who settled at Forest Hill, but early in the 
Civil War emigrated to Ohio. Another daughter, Lilly, married 
John Mastin Hutchinson. Another, Rhoda Lilly, married Fleming 
Sanders, who lived near Forest Hill, and was broken up by reason 
of his suretyship for Joseph Ellis, deputy sheriff, for Evan Hmton. 
Fleming Sanders was a brother of Capt. "Bob" Sanders. Lydia 
Woodrum married George Allen, who lived on Indian Draft near 
Greenville. 

A man by the name of Massey, possibly Peter Massey, settled 
and lived on the John M. Hutchinson place near Forest Hill, and it 
is known to this day as the Massey place. These people were all 
old settlers around Forest Hill and in that region. 

Nathaniel Roberts built the first storehouse at Forest Hill. He 



96 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



married a sister of Judge A. N. Campbell. This storehouse was 
built fifty years ago, and is now occupied by Crawford & McNeer, 
merchants, and this house was occupied at the beginning of i lie 
Civil War. 

The present postmaster at Forest Hill is Thomas Marshall 
Hutchinson, and he has had the office for the past twelve years. He 
is a merchant at that place, and was also postmaster before the 
Cleveland administration. The first postmaster at Forest Hill was 
J. M. Hutchinson, there being no post office at that place before 
the War, and the people of that region got their mail at Red Sul- 
phur Springs. 

The people of the neighborhood would take it in turn and go to 
the "Red" once a week for the mail, and sometimes make up a purse 
and hired a boy to go after it, as they did A. M. Hutchinson when 
a boy. 

A tobacco factory was built at Forest Hill, then known as 
"Farms," fifty years ago, by a man by the name of Hogleman, but 
the manufacturers, Roberts & Hogleman, was probably the first 
firm. They manufactured chewing and smoking tobacco. It was a 
flourishing business, the latest firm being the late James Mann and 
J. Cary Woodson. 

There were three old settlers at Forest Hill by the name of 
Vass. One was Major Vass, a bachelor, who settled on the J. D. 
Bolton farm. Another was Baswell, a brother of the Major, who 
sold out before the War and went to Raleigh County. Two of his 
sons, one of whom is James L., are Baptist ministers in South 
Carolina. The other brother was James Vass, who settled on an 
adjoining place with his brother, known as the Lewis C. Symms 
place, on Bradshaw's Run. They were not brothers of the late 
Philip Vass, the father of Squire Cary Vass, of Marie, who was a 
native of Giles County, Virginia. 

Edwin Woodson, who early settled in Forest Hill on the head 
of Bradshaw's, was an eminent missionary Baptist preacher and 
was the father of J. Cary Woodson and John N. B. Woodson, who 
now live in Alderson, West Virginia ; Wm. W. Woodson, who 
married a daughter of John H. Dunn, and Edwin C. Woodson, who 
is the youngest, and he is now over sixty years old. Eliza Woodson 
married I. J. Cox, and Jane married Stewart Mann. 

The W r oodsons were among the earliest settlers in the New 
River Valley, and the settlers were among the pioneer Indian 
fighters and defenders of pioneer civilization in the New River 
Valley region, and there are descendants of the pioneer Woodsons 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



97 



throughout all the county in those valleys west of the Alleghenies. 
Stonewall Jackson's mother married a Woodson as her second hus- 
band, and she is buried at Ansted, in Fayette County. 

One of the first settlers in the Forest Hill country was Peter 
Miner, who settled on the farm where that excellent citizen, Allen 
Ellison, now lives. His direct descendant, Peter Miner, of that 
district, still owns and lives on a part of the original Miner lands, 
and is an excellent citizen. Richard McNeer married his sister, 
and the mother of Squire John P. McNeer of that district. They 
have had a long controversy over the title to a part of this prop- 
erty with Mr. Allen F. Brown. 

Another of the oldest and most enterprising farmers of Forest 
Hill District, as well as most respected, is' Thomas G. Lowe, who 
lives on Bradshaw's Run, where Bradshaw, the settler, was slain 
by the Indians. He was a brave and honorable Confederate soldier 
during the Civil War. He is a brother of L G. Lowe, the ex-justice 
and politician, but a loyal Democrat, and his brother a loyal Re- 
publican. His son, William G. Lowe, is the efficient postmaster at 
Indian Mills, and another son, Robert E. Lowe, fills an important 
position in Government service at Washington, D. C. Another of 
the best citizens of that country is Wm. Redmond, a southwest Vir- 
ginian, who settled many years ago near the Indian Mills. 

Frank Meadows was a soldier under General Anthony Wayne 
(Mad Anthony) from' Culpepper County, Virginia, and after the 
battle of Fallen Timbers and the end of the war came to Wolf 
Creek and settled. He drew a pension, and after his death it was 
drawn by his wife from the United States Government. He raised 
a family of two sons; one was named St. Clair (Sinclair) after Gen- 
eral St. Clair, and another after General Anthony Wayne. G. C. 
Meadows and J. J. Meadows, of Barger Springs, are sons of St. 
Clair. 

This generation of Meadows settled on Greenbrier River in the 
region of the Wiggins country. G. C. Meadows, son of St. Clair 
Meadows, now living at Barger's Springs, was a soldier throughout 
the Civil War. He was a member of Capt. Morton's company and 
was captured and taken as a prisoner of war at Camp Chase, where 
he was confined for many months. While there he made with his 
pen-knife a handsome cane from a piece of hickory stove wood, on 
which he cut, "G. C. Meadows, Camp Chase, Ohio." It is a beau- 
tiful piece of workmanship, done to aid in killing time. He pre- 
sented this souvenir to the writer in 1907. 

The William C. Richmond Bottom below Hinton was first 



98 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

settled by J. Meadows and Peter Davis. Meadows built his house 
at the upper end and Davis at the lower end. Jerry Davis was the 
father of William Davis, who died on the waters of Madam's 
Creek a few years ago, and the grandfather of John, Hortan and 
Garfield Davis. Abraham, Isaac and Rufus were the sons of Jerry 
above named. 

The people of this county have always practiced those traits of 
honorable character, in their dealing with one another and with 
strangers within their borders, which approach as nearly to that 
of the Golden Rule as those of any community in any land, and 
especially in any region of territory within the United States. We 
may travel all over this county during the darkest nights, over the 
lonely roads and highways, notwithstanding the great and innu- 
merable spots within dense forests and among great mountains, 
hills, cliffs and rocks which are suitable for the commission of 
dark deeds, free from the sight of criminals and their victims and 
without danger. No one is required to carry arms for his own 
protection or that of his property; neither is the farmer required 
to lock up or fasten his house or his home to prevent invading 
marauders. Crime has never been prevalent in the country dis- 
tricts of this territory, and the people are courteous to each other 
and also to strangers. The abrupt and, often insolent manners 
frequent to many sections of this country, and especially to the 
densely populated cities and communities, is not in evidence in 
Summers County. When the people meet, they take time to greet 
each other, ask about the health of their families and how they 
are prospering, as well as to inquire into the welfare of their neigh- 
bors, always giving and receiving sociable answers to personal in- 
quiries, and with a grace and asperity not imitated in many sec- 
tions. It is acquired by descent, and is devoid of profuseness. If 
a person is accepted as a guest, he is expected to be at home dur- 
ing the visit, whether it be in a log cabin, or a mansion on the 
shores of the rivers. The social life of these people has always 
been most agreeable, without style, formality, or ostentation. In- 
vitations to come and dine and spend the day are usual among the 
neighbors, and are accepted. The custom of spending the day is, 
and has been for generations, a common occurrence among these 
people. One of the old customs which has descended to the pres- 
ent generation, among the ladies of a community, is to invite each 
other to come and spend the day and bring their knitting along, 
and invitations to a quilting, or some gathering of that character 
of a social nature. The knitting has gone out of fashion, because 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 99 

it has become one of the lost arts since the Civil War. The quilt- 
ing was one of the many features of country life in this region 
in which young and old patricipated. A home-made quilt, in which 
the neighbors joined in making, was a work of art as well as of 
patience. The quilt is composed of scraps from wedding gowns 
and other garments, and rare fabrics, cut in all manner of shapes 
and devices. Each scrap has its history in connection with the 
wearer or the owner of the original from which it was cut. Some 
patches in the quilt are cut to represent hearts, birds, animals and 
monograms artfully made with selected threads. From such a 
quilt, of which there are many in this good county, is built up a 
history of good neighbors and good friends. At one of these quilt- 
ings the male members attended in the evening, partaking of the 
bounteous meals and of the dances which followed. The inter- 
course among our people, as it has been for generations, is frequent 
and genteel. They meet in public, political meetings and religious 
services, and have kept bright the dull and rough edges of human 
life in a country of this character, and which naturally grows up in 
an isolated mountain community. There has never been envy or 
jealousy between the classes of rich and poor. They mingle on 
an equality during public occasions. The individual is respected 
because of his good qualities, and not because of his earthly pos- 
sessions. The learned official carries his head no higher in dis- 
dain of the private citizen than does the farmer and the mountain- 
eer, who can neither read nor write his name, but is a decent and 
respectable citizen. Neither has disdain for his fellow, unless the 
individual has forfeited his self-respect by his own acts. The peo- 
ple of this county have always been on an equality. There have 
been no rich people, and the extremely poor have been few, com- 
paratively. They were all educated in the same schools, and were 
brought up in the same surroundings, the majority, possibly, of our 
people being possessed of property of less than one thousand dol- 
lars ; nevertheless, such persons, regardless of their worldly goods, 
have been enabled to live upon the lands, and receive many more 
comforts from that meager possession than are received in other 
regions, where possessions are much less meager and the proper- 
ties are much greater in value. The majority of the people own 
their own lands. They are all reared to work with their own 
hands, and clasp the plow-handle or other implements of honest 
toil, which give assurance of prosperity without shame. The early 
settlers sought this region for an independent life. They preferred 
it, and they secured it, and that independence has descended to 



100 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the present generation, and every inhabitant of the county should 
be proud of his native State, as well as of his county, who was 
born within its territory or reared upon its soil, or where it has 
become his home by adoption. 

The first Constitution which governed this territory was adopted 
on the 29th day of June, 1776, five days before the famous Dec- 
laration of Independence was adopted, and on the 30th of June 
the first Governor was selected by the inhabitants from their own 
ranks, which was Patrick Henry. It was under this Constitution 
that religious freedom was made an existing fact, and the Church 
of England was disestablished. At practically the same time primo- 
geniture and the entail systems were abolished, by which lands 
were handed down from father to the oldest son in succession. 
The question of suffrage was an agitated one from 1780 to 1850, 
and till this date. Under the Constitution of 1776 no man could 
vote who did not possess as much as twenty-five acres of land, 
with a house on it, or fifty acres of unimproved land. After a long 
fight, suffrage was extended in 1830 to certain lease-holders and 
- house-holders ; but not until the famous Reform Convention of 
1850 was every free white man allowed to vote, and during all the 
time of the strenuous suffrage agitation there was an agitation be- 
tween the Eastern and Western sections of Virginia. It was in 
1850 that the people were given the right to elect the Governor, 
justices and all local officers, including members of the Legisla- 
ture, by a direct vote. Prior to that they were elected by the Gen- 
eral Assembly, which corresponds with our Legislature, and dur- 
ing all this period the people voted by the viva voce system. The 
secret ballot was never introduced until after the Civil War. Dur- 
ing the time our territory was within the territory of Virginia, it 
furnished seven Presidents to the United States. It gave the ter- 
ritory from which six States were carved, so that she was the 
"Mother of States" as well as the "Mother of Statesmen and Presi- 
dents." 

When the ancient pioneers came into this land, they found a 
home in the wilderness, and they betook themselves to building 
houses, clearing the forests, planting orchards and cultivating the 
arts of civilized life. Few of them ran wild in the forests, and few 
of them became speculators or engaged in trafficking or speculat- 
ing in hazardous enterprises. They were sober and thoughtful. 
They were far remote from the seat of justice. Neither the pio- 
neer, as well as his ancestor, would submit to ecclesiastical domi- 
nation. As they detested civil tyranny, so did they detest eccle- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNT Yj WEST VIRGINIA. 101 



siastical. The great majority of the ancient settlers were Whigs 
of the firmest type. They were brave, and the great majority in 
this region descended from emigrants from the Valley of Virginia, 
of Scotch-Irish and of German descent, and as that country settled 
up and became populated, the same descendants of the pioneers 
gradually went Westward, as they have continued to do in the 
century following. It was of these pioneer settlers and ancient 
yeomanry that Washington signified an opinion when, in the 
darkest days of the Revolution, when it looked as though the 
patriots might fail in that eight years' struggle, he said "that if 
all other sources should fail, he might yet repair with a single 
standard from West Augusta, which included that region west of 
the top of the Allegheny Mountains, and there rally a band of 
patriots who would meet the enemy at the Blue Ridge, and there 
establish the foundation of a free empire in the West," thus indi- 
cating that it was his belief that, as a last resource, he could yet 
gather amorce in Western Virginia which the great armies of Eng- 
land could not subdue. It was the descendants of these sires of 
which Washington spoke who settled in the fastnesses of this 
mountain region, and the spirit of those sires still reigns in their 
descendants, as the day of trial will disclose if it may ever become 
necessary to put it to the test. 

As stated in other parts of this book, the first houses erected 
by these primitive settlers, beginning about 1760, were the log 
cabins, covered with split clapboards, weighted down by poles to 
hold them in place. Frequently these cabins had no floors except 
the earth. Where they had floors, they were of split puncheons, 
smoothed down with a broad-axe. There were, however, a few 
hewed log houses, and later many more, as the people advanced in 
prosperity and the country developed in poulation and wealth. As 
the improvements came and advancement followed, hewed log 
houses became common, with shingle roof and plank floor, sawed 
with the whip-saw. There were no saw-mills. 

The dress of these early settlers was of the plainest materials, 
always home-made. Before the Revolutionary War, the married 
men shaved their heads and wore wigs or linen caps. Men's coats 
were made with broad backs and straight, short skirts, with pock- 
ets on the outside, having large flaps. The breeches were so short 
as to barely reach the knee, with a band around the knee, fastened 
at either end with a silver buckle. The stocking was drawn up 
under the knee-band and tied with a garter, red or blue, below the 
knee, so that it might be seen. The shoes were of leather or moc- 



102 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



casins. If shoes, they were fastened with a brass or silver buckle. 
The hat was wool or fur — usually wool — manufactured by rude 
home processes. The dress for the neck was a narrow collar to 
the shirt. There were none of the more wealthy or fashionable in 
this region who could afford the stock, knee and shoe buckles, set in 
gold or silver, with brilliant stones. Those who did that in the East 
were considered great folk, of which we had none. The female 
dress was generally the short gown and petticoat, made of plain 
material. The German women mostly wore tight calico caps on 
their heads. In hay and harvest times they joined the men in the 
labor in the fields and meadows, and it was not common only as 
a German practice, but was common to all. Many of the females 
were expert mowers, choppers and reapers. The furniture was of 
the plainest imaginable ; a piece brought from the East was a curi- 
osity. The custom of housing stock was not at all frequent. The 
"Dutch" or German descendants alone brought with them the 
fashion of housing their stock to better comforts than the members 
of the household. There was thrift and money in it. 

John Alderson, Sr., was born in England, came to New Jersey 
in 1737, and married a Miss Curtis, a daughter of his captain. He 
became a Baptist minister, finally removing to Rockingham County, 
Virginia. He had a son John, who also became a Baptist minister, 
and who married a Miss Carroll, of Rockingham County. It was 
John Alderson, Sr., who came to the Greenbrier region in 1775, 
and founded the Alderson generation. He was a man of great in- 
telligence, and of indomitable will and energy. He was the first 
Baptist minister who carried the Baptist doctrine into all this re- 
gion west of the Alleghenies. He organized the old Greenbrier 
Baptist Church in 1781. 

Capt. Hugh Caperton, who is mentioned in these pages, was 
associated with Daniel Boone, and was his commissariat. Boone 
fell out with Captain Caperton on an expedition to the mountains 
of Kanawha River, and left the camp. When Boone heard of the 
necessities of the company for food, and was asked why he left the 
company, he replied, "Caperton didn't do to my likin'." Captain 
Caperton operated with his company in 1793. Among the men in 
that company, whose descendants live in this country, were Madi- 
son Meadows, Edward Farley, AVilliam Graham, James Montgom- 
ery, Francis Farley, Drury Farley, Thomas Cook, Andrew John- 
son, Jonas Hatfield, David French, Henry Massie, James Abbott, 
the descendants of whose family live in Pipestem district; Moses 
Massie, James Graham, David Graham, James Sweeney, whose 




GREENBRIER RIVER. 
Scene on C. & O. Railway From Top Gwinn's Mountain at 
Lowell. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



103 



descendant is the ancient Baptist minister at Beckley; Isaiah Cal- 
loway, whose descendant is Matthew Vincent Calloway, the cour- 
teous ex-sheriff of this county, now residing in Washington City; 
and George Abbott. 

The pioneer, when he came to this land, carried with him all 
his belongings — all his earthly goods — which usually consisted of 
a rifle gun; if married, his wife, and such plunder as could be car- 
ried on a pack-saddle. If the emigrant was so fortunate as to own 
a horse (or beast, as this animal was generally known) — some- 
times he would, if extra well-to-do — a negro slave would be a part 
of his inheritance. Every settler at once became a hunter, a trap- 
per, a farmer and a soldier. The men and boys, and in many in- 
stances the women, worked with the hoe, axe and mattock in the 
clearing of the field. The hides of wild animals were dressed 
The usual footwear was the moccasin, made from the dressed deer- 
skin, which was fashioned without thread, tacks or soles — fastened 
together with strings cut from the deer-hide. Shoes were a curios- 
ity ; and when they came into use, made from the tanned cow-hide, 
they were made altogether by the neighborhood shoemaker (dog- 
wood pegs held the soles to the uppers), who made his own pegs, 
shoe thread and lasts on which to fashion them. The cradle for 
the baby was usually a sugar-trough, or a rough box constructed by 
the master of the place. Plow shoes were made of wood ; beds, 
of chaff, if wheat had been raised ; if not, from leaves. The floors 
were made of oak or poplar logs split in the middle, and laid on the 
ground with the flat side up, sometimes hewn with a pole-axe, and 
later with the broad-axe. Wooden pegs were used instead of iron 
nails in all framing, and in fastening on the rafters and wall-plates. 
Later, when iron could be had and blacksmith shops came, the 
"wrought iron" nails, made by the blacksmith, were used, and took 
the place of the locust or hickory pin ; and later the four-sided fac- 
tory nail succeeded the smith-made hammered or wrought nail ; 
and now the wire nail is used exclusively. There still exist in this 
country some remains of the old buildings wherein there was not a 
piece of iron used in construction ; and in others the remains of 
the shop-made, hammered nails. Leather straps were used for 
door hinges, or blocks of wood dressed down and shaped to enter 
an augur-hole, nailed to the door facing with another piece with a 
hole in it, and nailed to the door. Two sets of these, and the door 
was ready to hang. No iron latches or locks, but a wooden door- 
latch — a strip of thin wood and a wooden "ketch," and a string 
attached to the latch and passing out through a hole in the door — 



104 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



completed the fastenings. Not a nail or a piece of iron in the whole 
building! Such a large log building was on the W. E. Miller 
farm, on Lick Creek, in the Ellis Hollow, with a chimney ten feet 
wide. This was only one of the many of the pioneer residences 
erected in this land in its first settlements. 

The hand mill and the hominy block, with a hole made in the 
top, in which the corn was made into meal with a pestle, came 
first; after this came the pounding mill, but few and far between; 
later came the water grist mill. At first all lumber was sawed by the 
whip-saw. A log would be hewed square, then hoisted on trestles 
so that a man could stand under it. One man would stand on top, 
one underneath, and with a long saw, something like the cross- 
cut, with one man hold of each end, they would manufacture the 
log into plank, the man below righting the dust out of his eyes. 
Then came the upright water saw-mill, the remains of which may 
yet be seen in very rare instances. Many a good housewife had 
the ancient loom and spinning-wheels. The table-ware was of the 
rudest character — tin plates, wooden bowls and dough trays. Salt 
could not be had in the backwoods ; but the ginseng, furs, cured 
venison hams and bear meats to be transported to the far-off towns 
were gathered in, and a far-off journey prepared for, and an ex- 
change made for salt, and later iron, which were transported by the 
pack-horse, with an old home-made wooden pack-saddle. The 
horses went unshod. 

These pioneers were a hardy race. They felled forests ; they 
battled against the wild beasts — bears, wolves, panthers, and rat- 
tlesnakes, copperheads, and other vicious wild beasts and venom- 
ous reptiles with which the forests were crowded and were warring 
with each other ; and there were forests full of deer, buffalo, elk, 
pigeons and turkeys, and other birds useful for sustenance. 

The emigrants from the Old World were not of this hardy 
stock. ^They sought, however thrifty, the protection of the pio- 
neer settler from the Indian savage, as well as the wild beasts of 
the wilderness. Every pioneer was a defender of himself and his 
neighbor. The boys and girls and the women could ride, swim, 
shoot, hunt and kill. They could aid in the defense of the fort or 
the blockhouse. There was no end of war with the savages; it 
mattered not whether during a so-called peace, or when a war was 
in progress. The Indian was always at war until driven out of the 
land, and this continued for a generation. 

The coat usually worn was the hunting-shirt, made of 
home-made jeans or the skins of wild animals. It came to the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 105 



knees, with a belt buttoned around the waist. The arms for de- 
fensive purposes, as well as for hunting, were the old flint-lock 
rifles, musket or flint-lock smooth-bore, and large hunting knives; 
and only in later years did the percussion lock and cap-rifled gun 
follow. The weddings were not frequent, but were great events. 

There were no schools for a long time after the pioneer first 
began reclaiming the wilderness, and it was only the fortunate 
boy or girl who had the opportunity to learn to read or write. Both 
were, in the early days, great accomplishments ; and to know how 
to figure beyond vulgar fractions was a wonder. When the school- 
teacher came in, he would board around with the various families 
who sent their children to him. He taught in the log-cabin school 
house with board covering held on by ridge poles, there being no 
nails to be secured with which to fasten the roof, and with dirt 
floors; the poles or walls were sometimes daubed with mud, or 
chinked only and not hewn, with a rock chimney, and a fireplace 
big enough to burn a log-heap at one time. Even these 
houses were few and far between. The seats were split logs or 
fence rails, with holes bored in one side and pegs stuck in for legs, 
without backs or comfort. One log was cut out and a hole made 
for light, and no desks. The ink with which the youth learned to 
write was frequently "poke-berry juice" ; and after all, when a 
school house was built and a teacher secured — which was after 
the neighborhod began to settle up — it was only the few who 
learned to read and write. There were no college-bred gents, kid- 
glove or patent-leather shoe gentlemen in those days. No churches, 
but soon came the pioneer missionary Baptists, Methodists, Pres- 
byterians and Primitive Baptists, with the pioneer preacher, In- 
dian fighter and man of God ; and the influence of those pioneer 
ministers of the gospel will be felt to the remotest ends of the 
earth, among the generations who still and will inhabit the land. 
No churches were there, but for miles around they would gather 
in the groves and in the cabin and dwelling, once in a while, to 
worship according to the dictates of their conscience. Later came 
the rude log church and the old-fashioned school house, which an- 
swered also for church purposes. The Primitive (Hardshell) Bap- 
tists were confined to Pipestem and Jumping Branch districts. 
Wm. Crump and the Neelys and Meadors were its chief support- 
ers. They did not believe in an educated ministry or in paying 
their preachers ; but are a conscientious, honest and God-fearing 
people, and good citizens. 

The spinning-wheel, now a relic of the past, was a useful piece 



106 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of furniture to the household of every thrifty settler. The large 
wheel was used for spinning the wool into long rolls, and then 
into thread, and then woven into cloth by the old loom which 
stood in the kitchen "loom-house." The small wheel (distaff) 
was used for spinning the flax fibers, or hemp, which was made 
into thread and made ready for the weaver, to be made into linen 
or "tow" cloth, for the men and women's clothing. 

"Breathes there a man with soul so dead, 
Who never to himself hath said, 
'This is my own, my native land?' 
Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned 
As home his footsteps he hath turned 
From wanderings on a foreign strand? 
If such there be, go mark him well ; 
In him no minstrel raptures swell. 
High though his title, proud his name, 
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim, — 
Despite those titles, power and pelf, 
The wretch concentrates all in self. 
Living, shall forfeit fair renown, 
And doubly dying, shall go down 
To the vile dust, from whence he sprung, 
Unwept, unhonored and unsung." 



CHAPTER VII. 



FIRST SETTLERS OF HINTON. 

In 1871, the family of Isaac Ballengee lived in the log house 
about the middle of the present railroad yards about the round- 
house. The family of John Hinton lived in a log house by the side 
of the main track just above the railroad and street crossing at the 
foot of the hill in the city of Avis. 

Then came Mathew Vincent Calloway, who built a frame resi- 
dence on the lot now owned by R. H. Maxwell at the east end of 
the foot bridge, which washed away in the flood of 1878; Dr. Benj. 
P. Gooch, for the practice of his profession, built the residence 
on the '''island/' now owned by Bowman. Both of these gentlemen 
were from Mercer. Luther M. Dunn, who did business near the 
Avis crossing, from Albemarle County, Virginia ; Carl Alexander 
Fredeking, Lee Fredeking and Charles, the native Germans, who 
came directly from Southwest Virginia ; Robert R. Flannagan and 
A. G. and Richard A., three brothers from Fayette County; Burke 
Prince and E. O., his brother, from Raleigh County; William W. 
Adams, attorney, from Petersburg, Virginia ; Nelson M. Lowry, 
attorney, from Nelson County, Virginia ; Cameron L., William R., 
J. S. and Major Benj. S. Thompson, father and three sons, native 
West Virginians; Archie B. Perkins and William B. Sprowl, of 
Virginia ; M. A. Riffe and Jake A. Rifle, of Rifle's Crossing County ; 
Archie Butt, printer . Lewisburg; W. Frank McClung, Lewisburg; 
Carlos A. Sperry, attorney, Lewisburg ; Raymond Dunn, Virginia ; 
James Wimmer, railway engineer, Virginia ; George Glass, carpen- 
ter, Virginia, whose family still resides therein, his widow now 
being eighty odd years old ; Phil Cason, railroad conductor ; Childes 
Talley, railroad conductor, Walker Tyler, railroad foreman, who 
died in 1907, his family still residing in the city; James Briers, 
round-house foreman, of Virginia, and whose sons still reside here- 
in ; James Prince, merchant, Raleigh County; Wm. T. Gitt, hotel 
keeper, of Giles County, Virginia; H. S. Gerow, New York; Wm. 
James, lumberman, of Pennsylvania; Dr. John G. Manser, County; 
Dr. Shannon P. Peck, County; W. B. Talliaferro, railway employe, 
Virginia; John P. Mills, lumberman, New York; John R. Gott, 
undertaker, Mercer County; John H. Pack, merchant. County; B. 



• 108 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



L. Hoge, clerk, Mercer County; John M. Carden, hotel, County; 
John H. Gunther, the first depot agent and agent for the Central 
Land Company at Hinton ; E. H. Peck, clerk, Mercer County; D. R. 
Swisher, master machinist, Virginia ; W. D. Tompkies, merchant, 
Virginia; W. C. Ridgeway, hotel; John Finn, Virginia; Robert 
Elliott, lumberman, Canada; James W. Malcolm, attorney, Green- 
brier ; James P. Pack, salesman, County ^ C. A. Thomas, merchant, 
Ohio ; W. C. Burns, railway employee, Virginia ; George W. Gib- 
son, carpenter; James Johnson (colored), boatman; A. A. McNeer, 
tobacco manufacturer, Monroe County; D. H. Peck, railway en- 
gineer, County; P. P. Peck, clerk, County; O. McGee, butcher, 
Virginia; John McGee, butcher, Virginia; P. K. Litsinger, ma- 
chinist, Pennsylvania; R. D. Rose, carpenter, Monroe County; 
Capt. Frank H. Dennis, a sailor, Maryland (he was a brother of 
U. S. Senator George Dennis, of Maryland) ; M. A. W. Young, 
preacher, County; M. Bibb, minister, Fayette County; Wm. Wood 
(colored), watchmaker, Virginia; Jacob Pyles, blacksmith, Monroe 
. County; John Cooper, merchant, Mercer County; C. B. Mahon, 
railway conductor, Virginia ; R. A. McGinity, shoemaker, Virginia ; 
John W. Flanagan, railway engineer, Virginia ; W. R. Duerson, 
merchant, Virginia; G. O. Blubaugh, lumberman, Virginia; C. 
B. Blubaugh, M. D., Virginia; T. P. Snow, lumberman, Virginia; 
Cook Brothers, butchers, Ohio ; Ferguson Brothers, hotel, Raleigh ; 
John A. Douglas, attorney, Mercer; F. W. Mahood, attorney, Giles 
County, Virginia, and who had represented both Giles County and 
Mercer County in the Legislature of both Virginia and West Vir- 
ginia. M. V. Calloway was the first merchant, with Wm. Holroyd, 
the Englishman, as his partner; Hal McCue, attorney, Stanton. 

James H. Hobbs, a native of Roan County, was one of the first 
settlers in Hinton. He was a carpenter, and built some of the first 
buildings. He was also a constable (elected), and a school teacher. 

The first barber in Hinton was John Woodson, a colored man. 
The first white barber was Chris. Rau, from Ohio ; then came L. 
E. Dyke, Chris. Hetzel, the politician, J. A. Fox and others, and 
Wm. A. French, Mercer Salt Works. M. A. Riffe, W. C. Ridge- 
way, A. B. Perkins and Jake Ridisill were among the first saloon- 
ists. W. C. Ridgeway, Perkins & Sprowl, Ferguson Brothers, 
M. A. Riffe, Hiram Scott and Mrs. M. S. Gentry were the first 
hotel proprietors. Mrs. Gentry kept the first boarding-house in 
the cities of Hinton and Avis, which was in the old log Hin- 
ton residence, near the railroad crossing. George W. Gibson, 
John R. Gott and R. D. Rose, among the first carpenters; J. H. 
Gunther, first depot agent. Afterwards followed A. G. Flanagan, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 109 



L. M. Peck, J. Hugh Miller and R. A. Young, Among the first 
merchants were C. A. Fredeking & Brothers, A. B. Perkins, Jake A. 
Rifle, Joseph Hinton & Brother and Frank W. McClung. W. C. 
Ridgeway, M. D. Tomkies and W. A. Stewart were also among the 
first merchants; later came John Cooper. The first jeweler was 
A. T. Maupin, followed by William L. Fredeking, R. H. Smith, 
John D. McCorkle and E. M. Pack. The first drug store in the 
town was that of Dr. Wills, who also erected one of the first ho- 
tels, on the corner of Sixth Avenue and Front Street, which is now 
owned by Miss Maggie Atkinson. F. W. Benedict was also one 
of the original merchants. The next drug store was opened by Dr. 
Patterson, who was succeeded by W. A. Stewart; then came L. 
W. Bruce, an enterprising citizen, who established the first and only 
female seminary or school ever established in the city. He con- 
structed and used as a young ladies' school the present building 
occupied by the Miller hotel proprietor, and the four buildings by 
the side, facing the Court House Square. Later on came E. N. 
Falconer, followed by Puckett Brothers and the Hinton Drug Co. 
One of the pioneer carpenters and builders of the town was Cap- 
tain Falconer, the brave Confederate soldier, who resided for a 
number of years at Alderson ; B. L. Moorefield, the merchant tailor, 
and Mr. Tinder married his daughter. The first three-story brick 
building constructed in the town was by J. H. Gunther, on the site 
of Dr. Peck's brick business block, on Third Avenue, which burned 
down. The second was Ferguson Bros.' Central Hotel ; the third, 
Dunn & Humes' Building, on Second Avenue ; the fourth was R. D. 
Rose's brick corner on Temple Street and Third Avenue, and the 
Bank of Hinton, on the opposite corner, followed by R. R. Flana- 
gan's brick block. The pioneer brick masons and builders were two 
brothers, Samuel E. and William P. Phillips, who reside in Avis, 
and who built a number of pioneer brick buildings in the city. The 
first opera house after the Thespian Society's project was Col. J. A. 
Parker's, corner of Summers Street and Third Avenue. The first 
Methodist preacher was V. M. Wheeler; Presbyterian, Rev. Laird; 
Catholic, D. P. Walsh; Baptist, M. Bibb. 

Richard Gayer was one of the early railway men here. He was 
foreman in the yards, and was accidentally killed by an engine 
while in the performance of his duties. He left a widow, who died 
in recent years ; a son, John, an engineer on the Norfolk & Western 
Railway ; a daughter, Miss Maggie, who married Mayor J. F. Smith ; 
and another, Miss Mamie, who married Hamilton Bruce, of Virginia. 

R. A. McGinity was the first shoemaker ; and James Bishop, the 
second, operated on Front Street. 



110 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Hon. T. S. Scanlon was one of the early locomotive engineers 
who came to Hinton and made it his home. He is now a resident of 
Huntington, one of the leading merchants, bankers and Democratic 
leaders, and a fine orator — one of the best "stumpers" of the Demo- 
cratic faith. He is a brother of Mrs. Richard Gayer. 

The Gores, of which there have been a number in this county, 
including Henry Gore and his brother, Capt. Robert Gore, the 
father of Charles W. Gore, of Athens, Henry being the father of our 
present county citizen, a merchant on Lick Creek, James H. Gore, 
was originally a family from Loudon County. 

Capt. Robert Gore was a brave Confederate soldier, a captain 
in its armies ; was at the battle of Gettysburg, and captured, by his 
daring, one hundred Federal soldiers. This daring enterprise, suc- 
cessfully carried to a conclusion, was witnessed by William Brown, 
a brave soldier in that war, and now a respected citizen of Pipestem 
district, who remembers and relates very distinctly the details of 
the occurrence, and the incident is a true historical fact. 

The Frenches first came to Westmoreland Co., Virginia; then 
to Hampshire County, West Virginia ; thence to Giles and Mercer. 

The Gotts came directly from Ireland, John R. Gott being the 
representative of that family in this county. 

The Ellisons and Carnes came from Monroe County, and were 
pioneers in the settlements. The Bowlings and Woods came from 
Patrick County, Virginia. The Gooches were originally from Albe- 
marle County ; the Shumates from Fauquier County. The Coopers 
were from Grayson. The Pendletons were from Campbell Co. ; the 
Campbells from Patrick Co. ; the Meadows from Rockingham. 

Josiah Meadows, immediately after the close of the Revolution- 
ary War, first settled on Mountain Creek. He was the first Primi- 
tive Baptist (or Hardshell) preacher that came to Mercer and Sum- 
mers counties. His sons were Turner, William, John and Josiah, Jr. 

The Walkers were from Giles County. Charles Walker lived 
most of his life in Raleigh County. He had the honor of bringing 
the first grain cradle into that county. Sallie Walker married John 
Bowling in 1820; Nancy married Edmund Hatcher; Peggie married 
Andrew Lilly; Zula married Jonathan Bailey; Polly married Sam 
Bailey, in 1816; Marinda married Green Meador; Narcissa married 
Josiah Cooper; Valeria married William Lilly; Neuma married a 
Sizemqre ; Underwood married a Bailey ; Council first married a 
Bailey and then a Wood. These were children of Crispianis Walk- 
er, one of the men whose influence resulted in locating the county- 
,seat at Princeton, in 1837. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



FORMATION OF WEST VIRGINIA. 

Judge John Marshal Hagans, one of the most careful and con- 
servative historians, of the formation of the State, says that the 
people of West Virginia suffered in bondage to the people of East- 
ern Virginia, which was no less galling, when the animus of the 
age is considered, than that of the ancient Israelites in Egypt. This 
we think is true as to the larger portion of the State, but not as to 
the section wherein our county is situate. 

The first meeting that was held to oppose secession in this 
State was in Preston County, November 12, 1860. Resolutions 
were adopted opposing secession, without a dissenting voice. Simi- 
lar meetings were held in Harrison County, on November 24th ; 
Monongalia, November 26th ; in Taylor, December 3d, and in 
Wheeling, December 14th. 

On the 22d day of April, 1864, a large meeting was held at 
Clarksburg. It was attended by no less than 1,200 men. After a 
long preamble, declaring that the means resorted to by the se- 
cessionists to transfer the allegiance of the State from the Fed- 
eral Government were illegal and unjustifiable, they called upon 
each of the northwestern counties to select not less than five of its 
best, wisest and discreetest men to meet in convention at Wheel- 
ing, on the 13th day of May, 1861, to consult and determine upon 
such action as the people of Northwestern Virginia would take 
in the fearful emergency. 

The country was in confusion far greater than the sections that 
acknowledged the Confederate Government. Here there were no 
courts which dared to act. Armed bands of men traversed the 
country, requiring citizens to swear allegiance to the United States, 
and the sentiment of the people was so set against the State gov- 
ernment that these bands could not be restrained. They did much 
to promote the confusion, and all business practically stopped. 
This caused the convention of May 13th to be looked forward to 



112 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



by the better people, in hope that some relief would be afforded 
them. 

At this time no Federal troops had penetrated into Virginia. 
A regiment was hastily formed on Wheeling Island, but it was so 
new and raw that it inspired but little confidence. Delegates ap- 
peared from twenty-six counties. The more radical of the num- 
ber were for forming New Virginia. John S. Carlisle headed this 
element, which was in the majority. His plan was to adopt a 
constitution and appoint officers, and form a State government of 
the counties represented. W. T. Willey, of Morgantown, opposed 
this, on the grounds that no vote had been taken on the question 
of secession, and that such action would not be recognized by the 
Federal Government, being contrary to the mode prescribed for 
the formation of new States by the Constitution. 

The result was that the convention adjourned, after having de- 
termined that, if the ordinance of secession was adopted, to re- 
assemble on June 11th, together with such other counties not rep- 
resented at the first meeting as desired to join. About five hun- 
dred men composed this convention. 

May 23d was election day, and out of forty-four thousand votes 
cast in the northwest counties, forty thousand were against seces- 
sion. 

On the 11th of June, the delegates met in Wheeling again. 
Thirty-seven counties were represented at this time. Arthur I. 
Boreman was unanimously chosen chairman of the convention. 

The convention adopted a declaration of grievances, and re- 
organized the government of Virginia. Francis H. Pierpont, of 
Marion County, was elected Governor, and took the oath of office. 
Other orifices were filled. The Legislature convened in Wheeling, 
and elected United States Senators, who took their seats in Wash- 
ington as Senators from Virginia. 

The convention reassembled on the 6th of August, and pro- 
vided for an election upon an ordinance, the State of Kanawha, of 
thirty-nine counties, providing for the admission of Pocahontas 
and Greenbrier, if the next convention so decided. This election 
took place on the day specified, resulting in a vote of 18,408 for the 
new State, and 781 against it. 

It was provided that the new State should take upon itself a 
just proportion of the public debt of the commonwealth, charging 
itself with all State expenditures within its bounds, and deducting 
therefrom the amount of money paid into the State treasury by 
the counties during the same period. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 113 



The new convention assembled in Wheeling, November 26th. 
Most of the time was devoted to the discussing of the slavery- 
question, and the proposition to make the new State a slave State 
was defeated by a majority of one. The convention adjourned 
February 18, 1862, having framed a Constitution, to be submitted 
to the people April 3d. 

The name of the State of West Virginia was adopted. The 
Constitution, among a great many things, provided most liberally 
for free schools. On April 3d it was voted upon, and adopted by 
a vote of 18,862 in favor and 514 against. 

The Legislature assembled on the 6th of May, and memorialized 
Congress for admission as a State. On December 31st an Act was 
passed by Congress admitting the State, on the proviso that it adopt 
a slavery clause, providing for the gradual emancipation of slaves. 
This was adopted by the new State on the 26th day of March, 
1863, by a majority of about. 17,000. The result having been certi- 
fied to the President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln, the 
sixty-days' proclamation was made, and on the 20th day of June, 
1863, the new State came into existence, and on that day Governor 
Boreman, the first Governor, was inaugurated at Wheeling. At 
the first election held in the State, which was in 1861, 19,891 votes 
were cast. (See 1st W. Va. Report of Supreme Court of Appeals.) 

There was no such county then as ours ; and while the territory 
of Summers was within the territorial limits of the State, it did 
not come into existence until some years after the formation by a 
special Act of the Legislature creating it, as was done in the similar 
cases of Lincoln, Mingo and Grant. Had not the new State been 
formed, no doubt the county of Summers would not have existed ; 
and had not the war between the States been fought, the State of 
West Virginia would have had no place in history, and many names 
now familiar to West Virginians would have remained in obscu- 
rity, in so far as the creation of a commonwealth brought them 
forth as history-makers. The secession feeling was specially strong 
in the northern part of the State — that is, the secession from the 
mother State, and as strongly opposed to secession from the Union. 
The great majority of the people of the State, regardless of section 
or locality, opposed secession from the Union. While the western 
part of the State of Virginia was opposed to secession, the eastern 
,part was largely in favor of the secession. The slave-holding por- 
tion of the Commonwealth was in the eastern counties. 



114 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



FORMATION OF SUMMERS COUNTY. 

Summers County was formed by an Act of the Legislature of 
West Virginia, passed on the 27th day of February, 1871, and in 
the seventh year of the State, from the counties of Greenbrier 
(which was originally carved out of Botetourt in the year 1777) ; 
Monroe, which was formed from Greenbrier on the 14th of Janu- 
ary, 1799, by Act of the General Assembly of Virginia; from Mer- 
cer, which was created March 17. 1837, and which was formerly a 
part of Giles ; and Giles, which was a part of Montgomery ; and 
from Fayette, which was formed from Greenbrier, Kanawha, Nich- 
olas and Logan, in 1831. No part of Raleigh was included in Sum- 
mers, although the original intention was to include Richmond 
district of that county, and the Raleigh county line then and is now 
almost within a stone's throw from the Court House at Hinton. 
The reason for no part of Raleigh having been included was that, 
at the date of the passage of the Act, the population of that county 
was exceedingly sparse, and the valuation of the taxable property 
was very inconsiderable, although its territory was then and is 
now sufficient to have permitted one district to have been severed 
and still have retained the constitutional territory of 400 square 
miles, and the Court House, and the Court House removal agi- 
tation, to change the location to Trap Hill, twelve miles beyond 
Beckley. That county is now developing into one of the richest 
and most populous of the State, by reason of its extensive forests 
of merchantable timber and deposits of Red Ash, or Pocahontas 
soft coal. Then it had no railroads or mines; now it has one rail- 
road, the Piney Branch of the Chesapeake & Ohio; the Deepwater 
building, the Piney & Prosperity almost completed, and the Boone 
& Raleigh chartered and organizing. 

So strenuous was the opposition to any part of that county 
being formed into Summers; that the Hon. Moses Scott, who was 
a member of the Legislature from Raleigh at the time of the pas- 
sage of the Act forming Summers, required a clause to be inserted 
in the Act providing that no part of Raleigh County should ever 
be included in the County of Summers, before he would vote for the 
establishment of the county. Mr. Scott has a number of the de- 
scendants now residing in Hinton, including a daughter, who mar- 
ried the merchant, Marion M. Meadows, Mrs. David Marshall, a 
granddaughter, and others. The original surveys, made through 
the efforts of Mr. Evan Hinton, the original promoter of Summers 
County, showed that it was. his intention to include Richmond dis- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 115 

trict as a part of the new county ; and the survey as first made was 
to include from Greenbrier County only the territory east of Lick 
Creek; but when Richmond district had to be taken out by reason 
of the opposition of Raleigh County, the line was protracted so as to 
include more of the Greenbrier territory by going across the Pat- 
terson Mountain into the Meadows. 

Evan Hinton, a resident of Madam's Creek, in Jumping Branch 
district of Mercer County, may justly be entitled to the designation 
of "the Father of Summers County." When Mr. Hinton repaired 
to the Legislature, then in session at Charleston, his first move- 
ment was to employ the services of Hon. Jas. H. Furgeson, an as- 
tute lawyer, statesman and legislator of considerable experience 
in Virginia and in this State ; and with his surveys showing the 
requisite area of 400 square miles, and the determined opposition 
to the passage of the Act developed, Mr. Hinton found that it 
would be impossible to secure the enactment without relinquish- 
ing the territory from Raleigh County; so he and Judge Furgeson 
secured the services of John Cole, an accomplished surveyor and 
engineer of Kanawha County, who met in Mr. Hinton's room at 
the hotel and there made the present boundary lines for Summers 
County bv a protraction, leaving out the Raleigh territory and ex- 
tending oilier lines, especially between Greenbrier and Monroe, so 
as to apparently have the required constitutional area, when, in 
fact, at this day there is not 400 square miles in the territorial lim- 
its of Summers County by a large acreage. 

As will be later explained, and as was determined in the litiga- 
tion growing out of a legal dispute over the territory and boundary 
lines between Summers and Greenbrier, and Monroe and Sum- 
mers, which arose in the year 1894, the agitation for this new 
county sprang up about the time of the building of the Chesapeake 
& Ohio Railway, developing this region of the State. The citi- 
zens of the lower end of Mercer, Monroe, and the upper end of 
Blue Sulphur district of Greenbrier County, agitated the new coun- 
ty, one of the principal reasons advanced being the inconvenience 
of reaching the court house of each of the respective counties, as 
well as the desire for more offices, as political aspirants for official 
jobs were then abroad in the land, as well as now. 

Evan Hinton took charge of the fight; had the surveys made; 
went to Charleston, employed lobbyists, attended the sessions of 
the Legislature, and lobbied the necessary legislation into the en- 
actment, which is here inserted. 



116 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

CHAPTER 134.— AN ACT ESTABLISHING THE COUNTY 
OF SUMMERS OUT OF PARTS OF THE COUNTIES 
OF MERCER, MONROE, GREENBRIER AND FAYETTE. 
PASSED FEBRUARY 27, 1871. 

Be it Enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia: 

1. That so much of the counties of Monroe, Mercer, Green- 
brier and Fayette as is included within the following boundary 
lines, to-wit, beginning at the mouth of Round Bottom Branch, 
on New River, in Monroe County; thence crossing said river and 
running N. 47^° W., 5,430 poles, through the county of Mercer, 
to a point known as "Brammer's Gate," on the line dividing the 
counties of Mercer and Raleigh ; thence with said county line in an 
easterly direction to New River; thence with the line between the 
counties of Raleigh and Greenbrier, down New River, to the line 
of Fayette County ; thence with the line dividing Raleigh and Fay- 
ette counties, down said river to a station opposite Goddard's 
house; thence leaving the line of Raleigh County, crossing New 
River, passing through said Goddard's house, N. 67^° E. 3,280 
poles, through said county of Fayette to a station on "Wallow 
Hole" Mountain, in Greenbrier County; thence S. 55° E. 3,140 
poles, to a. station east of Keeney's Knob, in Monroe County; 
thence S. 9° E. 1,320 poles, to a station near Greenbrier River, and 
running thence S. 32° W. 7,740 poles, to the beginning, shall form 
one distinct and new county, which shall be called and known by 
the name of Summers County; and it is expressly understood and 
agreed by the applicants therefor that no part of the territory of 
the county of Raleigh shall ever be attached to the county created 
by this act. 

2. The said new county shall be attached to the same judicial 
circuit and Congressional and Senatorial' districts that the county 
of Monroe belongs to. 

3. The judge of the Circuit Court of the new county shall, as 
soon after the passage of this Act as practicable, appoint a clerk 
for said court, a prosecuting attorney, recorder, surveyor, county 
superintendent of free schools, and sheriff of said county, who shall 
hold said offices until their successors are elected and qualified ac- 
cording to law. 

4. All township officers within the bounds of the new county, 
at the date of the passage of this Act, shall remain in office for the 
term for which they were elected, and until their successors are 
elected and qualified according to law. The supervisors of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 117 



several townships within said new county, with William Haynes 
and Ephraim Gwinn, shall constitute the board of supervisors of 
said county of Summers until their successors are elected and quali- 
fied as aforesaid, and shall have all the powers and perform all the 
duties vested in and imposed by law upon other boards of super- 
visors. 

5. The county-seat of said new county shall be at the mouth of 
Greenbrier River, and the board of supervisors of said new county 
shall proceed as soon as practicable after the passage of this Act 
to provide a suitable court house and other public buildings for 
said new county in the manner required by law. 

6. The said new county shall be added to the delegate district 
composed of the counties of Greenbrier and Monroe, and the said 
counties of Greenbrier, Monroe and Summers shall together elect 
three delegates, until a new apportionment shall be made as pro- 
vided by the Constitution of this State, of which, at the election 
held in 1871, one shall be a resident of the county of Greenbrier, 
one of the county of Monroe, and one of the county of Summers ; 
at the election in 1872, one shall be a resident of. the county of 
Monroe, and two of the county of Greenbrier; at the election in 
1873, one shall be a resident of the county of Greenbrier, and two 
of the county of Monroe ; and so in rotation. 

7. All process issued in the said counties of Monroe, Mercer, 
Greenbrier and Fayette, before the organization of the said new 
county, and all public dues and officer's fees which may remain 
unpaid by citizens of the said new county, shall be executed and 
returned, collected and accounted for by the sheriff or other officer 
in whose hands the same may have been placed, in the same man- 
ner as if this Act had not been passed. 

8. The courts of said counties of Monroe, Mercer, Greenbrier 
and Fayette shall retain jurisdiction over all actions, suits and 
proceedings therein pending at the passage of this Act, and shall 
try and determine the same, and award execution or other process 
therein, except in cases in which both parties reside in said new 
county, which last mentioned cases, together with the papers and 
a transcript of the record of the proceedings therein had, shall, 
after that day, if either party so desire, be removed to the courts 
of the said new county, and there tried and determined as other 
cases. 

9. The board of supervisors of said new county may create an 
additional number of townships therein, not exceeding five in all, 
without submitting their action in the matter to a vote of the peo- 



118 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



pie. Said board shall also provide a place for holding courts in 
said new county until a court house shall be erected, as hereinbefore 
provided. 

10. The Circuit Court of the said county of Summers shall be 
held on the 29th day of April, the 1st day of July, and the 25th 
day of September, in each year. 

Prior to the formation of the county, the Greenbrier line ran 
with the top of Keeney's Knob, down the top of Elk Knob to New 
River, a few hundred feet east of the present court house location, 
and cornered with Monroe, Mercer and Raleigh ; thence down New 
River, on the opposite side from the court house, to the Fayette 
County line. The Monroe County line ran with the Greenbrier 
County line down Keeney's Knob ; thence up New River with the 
Mercer County line ; and the Mercer County line ran with the Mon- 
roe and Raleigh, all cornering together at the point named, which 
was at the late residence of Air. C. L. Thompson, near the court 
house, on the hill in Middle Hinton, and within what is now incor- 
porated as the city of Avis, and where D wight W. James has con- 
structed a handsome residence and now resides, and by the side 
of the new school building in Avis. 

Summers County lies between 37 degrees of latitude north and 
80 degrees of longitude west, and is at the base of the Allegheny 
Mountains, and throughout its territory the mountains extend in 
detached spurs, peaks and ridges. Its territory is cut up and di- 
versified by narrow streams and valleys, great mountains, hills and 
plateaus. Some time before its creation, John Hinton, the father 
of Evan, Joseph, Silas, John and William, advocated the formation 
of a new county, to be created from Fayette, Greenbrier, Monroe, 
Mercer and Raleigh, with the county-seat to be located on the 
Isaac Ballengee place, where the present court house is located, 
and had bills introduced in succeeding Legislatures, resulting in 
failure; and his efforts were taken up after his death by his son 
Evan. 

At the date of its formation, and for some years before, there 
had been a court house removal agitation on in Monroe County. 
The lower end of the county desired its removal from Union to 
Centerville, now Greeneville, which was claimed to be nearer the 
center, and by cutting out the lower end, Forest Hill and the Tal- 
cott sections, it would settle the matter for Union for all time; 
and, with that end in mind, Senator Allen T. Caperton, a citizen 
and friend of Union, went to Charleston at the session of the Leg- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 119 



islature of 1871, and vigorously enlisted his great influence in aid- 
ing Evan Hinton in securing the passage of his bill to found the 
new county, and the delegate from Monroe, B. F. Ballard, voted 
for it. Fayette County had then, and for many years afterward had, 
a like agitation for court house removal, and her delegate, Hon. 
Edward Allen Flanagan, voted to lop off a small slice of the ter- 
ritory of that county to weaken the upper end. 

Mercer was in the throes of a court house fight between Con- 
cord Church (Athens) and Princeton, with Jumping Branch and 
Pipestem districts solid for the former place. It was also in a life- 
and-death struggle for the overthrow of the test oath government 
and for home rule, carpet-bag government being in the saddle, led 
by George Evans, Benj. White and others; and her delegate, Syl- 
vester Upton, voted for the creation of the new county. In this 
connection we will state, to show the situation at that time, that 
out of a vote of eleven hundred legal voters, less than one hundred 
and fifty were permitted to cast their votes. A Committee of Pub- 
lic Safety was organized at Princeton by those gallant lawyers, 
soldiers and patriots, Capt. John A. Douglas, Judge David E. John- 
son, H. W. Straley, Napoleon B. French and C. D. Straley, and 
others, for the preservation of the people from grafters in high 
places, and to settle the court house location forever. The board 
of supervisors were meeting one day at Princeton, and the next at 
Concord ; the public records were being hauled back and forth from 
Princeton to Concord ; public revenues were being squandered at 
large, a court house to the second brace having been built and a 
jail completed, all in the forest, at Concord, the court house, as 
well as the town of Princeton, having been burned by the notorious 
and cowardly Confederate general, Jenifer. 

The Confederate soldiers, brave and able men, of which there 
were several companies from that county, having been disfran- 
chised and ostracised, the Committee of Safety, in order to secure 
the desired ends, joined with such men as Hon. Sylvester Upton, 
of Jumping Branch, elected him to the Legislature at the session 
of 1871, and he voted for the new county, giving it the two dis- 
tricts, which destroyed forever the hopes and aspirations of Con- 
cord Church to become a court house town. Later they secured 
the Normal School for that place, to mollify the people in that 
section. 

A court house agitation was on in Raleigh for the removal of 
the temple of justice to Trap Hill, and without Richmond district. 
Beckley would be lost; therefore to secure the vote of Hon. Moses 



120 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Scott, his clause was inserted providing that no part of that good 
county should ever be included within the territory of Summers 
County. By retaining Richmond district, Beckley strengthened 
herself and permanently secured the court house. By cutting off 
a part of Fayette, Monroe and Mercer, it settled the fights in those 
counties ; and Greenbrier had more territory remaining that it knew 
what to do with, and was glad to get rid of what it considered an 
isolated, bare piece of territory, forty miles from the court house, 
not worth while for the officeholders' visiting to collect the revenue, 
assess the taxes, or to enforce the laws. 

Thus, the influence of all the adjacent counties being secured, 
and those losing terrritory, the necessary votes were easily secured 
from those counties not interested ; and it was thus our municipal, 
political division was created, not by the wishes of her people, or 
from the requirements of government, but to settle selfish disputes 
rending the partisans and disturbing the equilibrium of other old- 
established communities ; and from the date of its creation, al- 
though opposed by a large majority of its own citizens, the weak- 
. ling has grown and prospered and flourished, until no son or daugh- 
ter within her territory is ashamed that he is a native of Summers 
County. It is truly a child of necessity. 

Upon the organization of the new county, it was divided into 
five townships, now designated as districts, which were named 
Jumping Branch, Pipestem, Greenbrier, Green Sulphur and Forest 
Hill, Jumping Branch and Pipestem being formed from the terri- 
tory taken from Mercer, Forest Hill and a part of Greenbrier from 
Monroe, and Green Sulphur from Fayette and Greenbrier, and 
Greenbrier Township from Monroe and Greenbrier counties. Jump- 
ing Branch was the name of that township before it was cut off 
from Mercer County; afterwards, in the year 1877, Greenbrier 
Township was divided and Talcott District formed therefrom ; and 
the territorial divisions of the county thus remain to this day. 

At the date of the formation of the county, the designation of 
townships was the legal title ; but they were afterward, by statute, 
changed to districts, and the territorial divisions of the county are 
now known as the Magisterial Districts. 

When Evan Hinton and his associates began the agitation for 
a new county, others undertook a counter movement, and an at- 
tempt was made to head off Hinton's enterprise and secure a new 
county out of practically the same territory, with New Richmond 
for the county-seat. This movement was headed and promoted 
by the late Dr. Samuel Williams, a distinguished physician and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 121 



surgeon, then located at New Richmond, ten miles west of Hinton. 
The advocates of this proposed county organized, selected and 
sent Mr. Andrew P. Pence, now of Pence's Springs, and Harrison 
Gwinn, now of Green Sulphur Springs, to Charleston to lobby for 
the proposed new county, and to defeat Hinton's project; but met 
with disastrous failure, as the results show. 

A number of surveys were made, Joseph Keaton, a surveyor of 
Pipestem District, and Hon. Wm. Haynes, of Talcott District, 
doing the greater part of the work; and the first, and probably the 
only official map of the county, so far as the writer is informed, 
was made by Joseph Keaton, who died several years ago, and who 
was the first county surveyor of the county, appointed on its for- 
mation, and who held until the first election for county officers 
in the county, when the late Michael Smith was elected to 
that office. Senator Wm. Haynes, referred to, now deceased, was 
the father of our present townsman of the Hinton Department Co., 
and of Harry Haynes, a commissioner of the County Court of the 
county. 

The Act of the Legislature creating the county provides that 
the county-seat shall be located at the mouth of Greenbrier River, 
from which uncertain wording grew lengthy and hard-fought liti- 
gation. It was claimed by the advocates above Greenbrier River 
that what is now Foss Postoffice, or near that point, was the mouth 
of Greenbrier River ; and by those below the river, that the mouth 
was near the present Upper Hinton Ferry, at or near the point of 
the Hinton Island. In the meantime, the old log Baptist Church, 
situated about two miles up New River from Foss, was proclaimed 
as the court house, and there a number of the courts of the county 
were held. Afterwards, the court house was removed and estab- 
lished over the printing office of Mr. C. L. Thompson, on the side 
of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway track, near the railroad cross- 
ing, in what is now the city of Avis. This building was burned 
down in the year 1875, and the storehouse building of John H. 
Pack, about opposite the point of the Hinton Island, was adopted 
as the court house — that is, the upper story thereof. The house 
was a one-story frame, and was ceiled under the rafters and seated 
with rough wooden benches, and there the courts were held for 
some time, until the old brick court house on the present site was 
built. The circuit and county clerks' offices were both first located 
at what is now Foss, near the ferry at the mouth of Greenbrier, in 
an old one-story log house, a mile and a quarter from the present 



122 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 

court house, later used as a storehouse, and now used for storage 
of junk. 

When it came to permanently locating the court house and 
letting its construction to contract, then began the legal conflicts 
which waged vigorously for a number of years. Dr. John G. Man- 
ser and E. B. Meador, Esq., both now deceased, were the princi- 
pal champions for the location at Foss, and Evan Hinton and oth- 
ers for the opposite side of Greenbrier River, in what is now Avis. 
At one time the erection of the court house was let to contract and 
the work begun, at a location on the island where Dr. B. P. Gooch 
afterwards built his residence, and where the late John S. Ewart 
resided at the time of his death. The brick were burned on that 
ground; but the inevitable injunction came, and the hopes of the 
islanders were shattered. 

Finally the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company took hold 
of the situation, and proposed to the county court to give to the 
county three acres of land for county purposes, which included 
Square "U," on the hill and what is now within the territorial lim- 
its of the city of Hinton, where the present court house is now 
situated, if the court would permanently locate the court house on 
that property, which proposition was accepted; and in 1874 Hon. 

Wm. Haynes and were appointed by the County 

Court a committee to draft plans for a new court house, and in 1875 
a contract was made between the county authorities and Colonel 
John C. McDonald, of Fayetteville, West Virginia, for the construc- 
tion of the first court house on the present site, which was completed 
about the year 1876, and occupied in 1877. Out of this contract 
grew considerable litigation, the contractor not having built the 
house according to plans, specifications and agreement, for the con- 
tract price agreed upon was $14,000. The acceptance of this prop- 
osition by the county authorities terminated the litigation over the 
location of tne county-seat and court house, and the same has re- 
mained undisturbed up to the present time. 

The legal location of the "mouth of the Greenbrier River" thus 
remains undetermined by the courts until this day and time. 

Very few of the public records were destroyed by the court 
house fire; but we find some missing, which prevents us from giv- 
ing the exact date of a very few of the transactions of those times. 

The Pack storehouse, in the garret of which the court house 
was located, was afterwards washed off by the great flood of 1878, 
which destroyed about fifteen houses, and that part of what was 
then known as the town of Hinton. 



AT THE MOUTH OF GREENBRIER, 
(Old Pack Mansion House.) 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 123 

The first court house built by the county was a two-story, prac- 
tically square structure, fifty feet square. 

At the passage of the formation Act, Hon. Moses Scott was the 
delegate from Raleigh County ; Hon. Richard Allen Flanagan, from 
Fayette; Hon. B. F. Ballard, from Monroe; Hon. Sylvester Upton, 
from Mercer, and Capt. A. W. Mann, fr.om Greenbrier. 



CHAPTER IX. 



FIRST COUNTY OFFICIALS AND ORGANIZATION. 

At the date of the formation of Summers County, under the 
laws then existing, the county affairs were conducted by a board 
of supervisors, which transacted the fiscal and road matters, and 
performed practically the same duties which are now performed by 
the commissioners of the County Court. The first supervisors of 
the county were: William Haynes, of Greenbrier Township; 
Ephraim J. Gwinn, of Green Sulphur Township ; Samuel Allen, of 
Forest Hill Township; James Houchins, of Pipestem Township, 
and Joseph Cox, of Jumping Branch Township, all of whom are 
now dead, Mr. Cox and Mr. Haynes being the last survivors. The 
Hon. J. M. McWhorter was the first judge of the Circuit Court of 
the county, filling the office for something over two years after its 
formation, by appointment, to fill a vacancy in the then circuit of 
which this county was a part, which vacancy was caused by the 
impeachment of Nathaniel Harrison for corruption in office, and 
for what in modern times is appropriately termed "graft." 

Under the law, the judge of the Circuit Court appointed all 
county officers, to hold until the next general election, which was 
in the year 1872, following the establishment of the county. Evan 
Hinton, the "Father of the County," was appointed the first sheriff, 
and gave bond in the penalty of $30,000, with Andrew L. Lilly, 
Wm. I. Lilly, Avis Hinton, Wm. T. Meador, John Hinton, Joseph 
Hinton and Silas Hinton as the sureties on the first bond ; and Jo- 
seph Hinton, Richard Woodrum, Joseph Ellis, Wm. Hinton, Wm. 
T. Meador, Avis Hinton and John Hinton, as sureties on the sec- 
ond of said bonds, one being for the general purposes, and the 
other to cover school funds. These appointments were made about 
the last of April, 1871, and the appointments continued until the 
first of January, 1873. Joseph Keaton was appointed the first sur- 
veyor, and executed bond, with Wm. Hughes and A. L. Harvey 
as his sureties. Josephus B. Pack was appointed recorder, there 
being no clerk of the County Court at that time, and gave bond, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



125 



with John H. Dunn, Joseph N. Haynes and Goodall Garten as his 
sureties. P. P. Peck was appointed commissioner of school lands, 
on the 9th day of September, 1873, and gave bond, with M. Smith, 
M. A. Manning and E. H. Peck as his sureties. Erastus H. Peck 
was appointed a commissioner in chancery, on the 10th day of 
September, 1875, and executed bond, with M. Smith, George W. 
Chatting and Elbert Fowler as his sureties. A. H. Meador was 
appointed the first clerk of the Circuit Court. Nelson M. Lowry 
was the first notary appointed for the county, and executed bond 
on the 25th day of September, 1871, with Thomas B. Gwinn as his 
surety. B. L. Hoge was appointed the first general receiver of the 
Circuit Court, and gave bond on the 12th day of September, 1877, 
with B. P. Gooch, Evan Hinton, M. A. Manning and M. Smith as 
his sureties. Josephus B. Pack, the first elected clerk of the county, 
died in office, and was succeeded by his deputy, E. H. Peck. 

The first record made in the County Court, so far as I am able 
to find, was by Josephus B. Pack, recorder, which is as follows: 

"State of West Virginia. At Rules held in the recorder's office, 
in Summers County, on Monday, the 8th day of May, 1871, in the 
eighth year of the State." 

The first record of a conveyance of land is as follows : 

"A deed of bargain and sale from Griffith Meadows and. wife 
to Sarah Woodson, bearing date the 9th day of December, 1870, 
conveying four-ninths of all the lands of Mathew Kincaid, de- 
ceased (except the widow's dower while she lives), lying on the 
north side of Greenbrier River, and on Hunghart's Creek. Admit- 
ted April 27, 1871. J. P. Pack, R., S. Co." 

The next entry is 1871, April 29th, and is a conveyance by 
William Crump to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company, for 
a one-ninth undivided interest in the Isaac Ballangee land for a 
double track railway. Griffith Meadows is still living, and resides 
in Monroe County, West Virginia. William Crump has long since 
died. 

The first record of a county court held in the county that I 
have been able to find from the records, is January 21, 1873. On 
January 1, 1873, the new law took effect by which the Board of 
Supervisors was abolished, and the law establishing the county 
courts took effect. The record of January 21, 1873, shows "present, 
Wm. T. Meador, C. R. Hines, A. L. Harvey, Robert Gore, J. A. 
Parker, Henry Milburn, gentlemen justices." The county court 
was then composed of the justices of the peace of each district of 



126 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the county, except the president of the court, who was elected as 
such. 

At this term of the court the bonds of J. B. Pack, as clerk; 
Evan Hinton, as sheriff; Michael Smith, as surveyor; Wellington 
Cox, as assessor, J. S. Lilly, as constable of Jumping Branch Dis- 
trict, and Jacob C. Allen, constable of Forest Hill District, were 
approved, and at this session the Rev. John Bragg was appointed 
and qualified as deputy clerk of the county court, and Joseph Ellis 
and B. P. Shumate were appointed deputy sheriffs. William H. 
Lilly was appointed deputy assessor for Wellington Cox. J. M. 
McWhorter and N. M. Lowry were qualified to practice law in the 
courts on the motion of W. G. Ryan. S. W. Willey, the present 
postmaster at Hinton, was appointed constable for Greenbrier Dis- 
trict. 

At this term of the court a motion was made by R. A. Vincent, 
who resided one mile and a half from New Richmond, on Lick 
Creek, in Green Sulphur District, for the appointment of justice 
of the peace, which was rejected. Said Vincent claimed that the 
district was entitled to two justices, by reason of the population at 
that time being sufficient therefor, and submitted his motion to the 
old Board of Supervisors for his appointment. W. P. Hinton was 
appointed by the Board of Supervisors to make a census of the 
population of Green Sulphur District, and report. His report was 
made to the county court (as the Board of Supervisors had been 
abolished), and was then rejected, and said Vincent took his bill 
of exceptions from the action of the county court, which is the 
first record of any appeal from the action of any court in the county, 
and which apeal was lost to Mr. Vincent. 

Albert J. Austin, at this term, was appointed constable for Pipe- 
stem District on the motion of Robert Gore. On the 21st day of 
January, 1873, Robert Gore, E. B. Meador and Wm, Haynes were 
appointed by the county court commissioners for the purpose of 
drafting a plan for the court house and other public buildings. 
On motion of C. R. Hines, W. G. Ryan, N. M. Lowry and E. H. 
Peck were appointed commissioners in chancery of the county 
court, and they were the first commissioners in chancery of the 
county court, and on this date the following motion was recorded : 

"On motion, the Baptist Church heretofore used as a court house 
is hereby adopted as the court house of the county." 

The March and July Terms were designated as the levy terms 
of the court and for transacting the fiscal affairs. 

Henry Milburn and J. A. Parker were selected as associate 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 127 

justices to hold the January Term of the court, and C. R. Hines 
and Robert Gore were selected as associate justices to hold the 
May Term of the court, and A. L. Harvey and Marion Gwinn as 
associate justices to hold the November Term. The May and No- 
vember Terms were designated as Grand Jury Terms. 

From the foregoing proceedings it will be observed that there 
was a great contrast between the judicial machinery of the courts 
then and at the present time, and that great advancement for the 
better and improvements have been made in the operation of the 
machinery of justice and in legal affairs. 

This court was composed solely of justices of the peace, except 
the president, neither of whom was required to be a lawyer or a 
person learned in law, and had jurisdiction to try actions at law 
and suits in chancery, with grand juries to indict persons accused 
of crime, and petit juries to try indictments and all character of 
criminal offenses, as well as civil actions. In the absence of the 
president, a justice of the peace acted as president pro tern. 

The next term of this court was held on the 18th day of Oc- 
tober, 1873. At this term Erastus C. Stevens was granted a license 
to keep a house of entertainment, and Erastus H. Peck was ap- 
pointed and qualified as deputy clerk of the county court. David 
G. Ballangee, of Clayton, was appointed a road surveyor, also 
Andrew Gwinn and Osborne Kesler, of Lowell, were appointed 
road surveyors, and Robert Gore, a member of the court, qualified 
as administrator of the personal estate of Nancy Dwiggins, de- 
ceased, and two of the other "gentlemen justices of the court," 
Allen L. Harvey and C. R. Hines, became his surety on his bond 
in the penalty of sixteen dollars ($16.00), according to the record; 
evidently intended for sixteen hundred dollars ($1,600.00). 

Hon. A. N. Campbell, who was afterwards judge of the circuit 
court of this county, was admitted to the practice of the law in this 
court, at this term, on the motion of W. G. Ryan. 

The first jail occupied in the county was a small, one-story, 
hewed log house, located near the railroad crossing in the city of 
Avis. It was entirely insecure, and was principally used for pris- 
oners charged with misdemeanors. The jails at Lewisburg, Beck- 
ley and Monroe being adapted and used from time to time, until 
the present jail was built, about the year 1884, from bonds issued 
by the county after the question of bonding the county had been 
submitted to a vote and adopted. The present jail and only one 
built by the county is two-story, of brick, with modern steel cells, 
there being two cells in the upper story used for female and mis- 



128 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

demeanor prisoners. These were not placed until within the last 
four or five years as demand for more room, the upper part of the 
jail building being originally occupied by the jailer's family. The 
old log jail house is owned by Joseph Hinton, and is about twelve 
feet square. The present brick jail house is about 20 x 30 feet, and 
is heated by steam. 

The first session of any judicial body in the county was of the 
Board of Supervisors, who met in the old log residence of Avis 
Hinton, on the railway track (later torn down for double track 
room), at the foot of the hill near the railway and street crossing, 
but nothing seems to have been done and no record made. A con- 
sultation. 

West Virginia. In Summers Circuit Court, September 8, 1874. 
Present, His Honor, Homer A. Holt, Judge. 

The following are the names of the first grand jury that was 
impanneled in the circuit court that we have a record of in the 
county, a portion of the first records of the county having been 
destroyed by fire: Maj. James A, Hutchison, foreman, dead; A. A. 
Miller, dead; A. P. Pence, living; James Cales, dead; Charles Gar- 
ten, living; Lockridge Gwinn, dead; James Ferrell, dead; Robert 
W. Meadows, dead; J. S. Dodd, dead; O. H. Caperton, dead; G. L. 
Jordan, dead; Jacob Mann, living; Henry Gore, dead; Robert W. 
Lilly, living (Shooting Bob). 

Since writing the previous chapter, we have fortunately been 
able to resurrect the record book of the Board of Supervisors, which 
was preserved from the fire which destroyed the first court room 
in Hinton, and also the Mountain Herald printing office, situated 
near the railway crossing at the foot of the hill. 

The first recorded meeting of the Board of Supervisors for the 
county was held at the mouth of Greenbrier, in the old log store- 
house (one-story) which is still standing and used by Miller 
Brothers as a storage place for junk, etc. 

The first order of record ever entered in and for the county 
was by the Hon. Marion Gwinn, a son of Ephraim and Rachel 
Gwinn, of Green Sulphur Springs, as clerk of the Board of Super- 
visors, which we give below: 

"State of West Virginia, mouth of Greenbrier River, March 
28, 1871. This day, in pursuance of an act of the Legislature of 
West Virginia, passed on February 27, 1871, the Board of Super- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 129 



visors, composed of Samuel Allen, Joseph Cox, E. J. Gwinn and 
William Haynes, met at the mouth of Greenbrier River for the 
purpose of organizing the county of Summers, and, after being 
qualified by a justice of the peace, Samuel Allen was chosen presi- 
dent, and Marion Gwinn was elected and qualified as clerk of said 
board." 

The board then proceeded to divide the county into five town- 
ships — Forest Hill, Greenbrier, Jumping Branch, Pipestem and 
Green Sulphur. Then this board proceeded to give the boundary 
lines of each township, all of which boundaries remain the same to 
this day, except Greenbrier, which was afterwards divided, and 
Talcott District formed therefrom in 1877. 

The place of voting at Forest Hill Township was fixed at James 
Keatley's, at the mouth of Indian Creek ; Green Sulphur Springs 
was fixed as the voting place of Green Sulphur Township ; Jumping 
Branch for Jumping Branch Township, and the court house for 
Greenbrier Township. 

Michael Smith was appointed constable for Forest Hill. Of 
this Board of Supervisors appointed by Judge McWhorter, two 
were Republicans, Samuel Allen and Joseph Cox, and two were 
Democrats, William Haynes and E. J. Gwinn. Joseph Cox resided 
near Jumping Branch, at which place he continued to reside until 
the date of his death a few years ago. He was the Republican 
party's candidate for commissioner of the county court at the elec- 
tion in 190 — . Samuel Allen was a resident of Wolf Creek in Forest 
Hill District, where he continued to reside until his death a few 
years ago. William Haynes resided at Haynes' Ferry, on Green- 
brier River, in Talcott District, and E. J. Gwinn resided at Green 
Sulphur Springs in Green Sulphur District, at which places they 
resided until their deaths. 

James Boyd was appointed by the board as assessor for the 
county, and gave bond on the 28th day of March, 1871, and was the 
first assessor of the county. He resided on Greenbrier River, near 
the "Little Ben Tunnel," where his son, Benjamin Boyd, now re- 
sides, he being the owner of the old Boyd homestead, and is a 
respectable and intelligent citizen of the county. 

The board then proceeded to appoint the various overseers of 
roads for the entire county, designating the respective hands to 
work on each road. The public roads were then maintained by 
public labor of as many days as might be fixed by the Board of 
Supervisors, each person between the ages of twenty-one and forty- 
five years being required, for the first year in the life of the 



130 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



county, to work six days himself, or provide a legal substitute. 
Andrew Gwinn was appointed a justice of the peace for Greenbrier 
District. This is the gentleman known as "Long Andy," who still 
resides at Lowell with his son, James Gwinn, being one of the 
best-known farmers and citizens in this section of the state. He 
is now about eighty years of age, but is hale and hearty. Soon 
after his appointment he resigned his office as justice, and we 
notice at this session of the court he was directed to turn over his 
papers to Joseph Grimmett, a justice of the county. 

Reverend Rufus Pack, on the 28th day of January, 1871, was 
authorized by the board to procure the necessary material and have 
built a plank building sixteen feet wide; height, one-story, the 
width of the church, the same to be divided by plank partition in 
the middle, to be used for jury rooms for the use of the jurors, and 
to have same in readiness by the 29th day of April ; also to make 
three tables, one three feet square, and two 3x8 feet, of poplar. 

The second meeting of the Board of Supervisors was held on 
the 15th day of April, 1871. I notice the order book of the pro- 
ceedings of the board was signed by Samuel Allen, president; by 
M. Gwinn, clerk. At this April meeting the members of the board 
present were Samuel, Allen, president ; Joseph Cox, James Houch- 
ins, William Haynes and E. J. Gwinn; James Houchins having 
been appointed for Pipestem District. E-. J. Gwinn resigned at 
this meeting as a member, and Harrison Gwinn, his son, was elected 
by the board in his stead to fill the vacancy until the next election 
by the people. Littlebury Noble, who still lives in this county 
and is well known as Berry Noble, was at this term of the board 
exempted from working on the roads. The following order was 
entered : 

"Be it ordained by the board that Rufus Pack be, and he is 
hereby granted a license to keep a house of private entertainment 
at his present place of residence." 

Mr. Pack was a minister of the Missionary Baptist Church, and 
resided about two miles up New River from the mouth of Green- 
brier River, on what is known as the Plumley farm, he owning 
that place at that time. Josephus Pack was authorized to purchase 
books, stationery, etc., necessary for the offices of the clerks of the 
circuit and county courts and recorder, and to rent a house to be 
used as clerk's and recorder's offices, at the sum of $25.00 per year. 
The board seems to have been an economical set of officials, and 
I doubt if one of them knew what the word "graft" meant as to its 
modern political signification. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 131 



The question of the location of the court house began to be 
agitated at this time, and the board entered the following order, 
which is the first mention of this matter of record : 

"Be it ordained that the 4th day of May be and is hereby set 
apart for the selection by the board of a site for the court house." 

The first election held in the new county for any purpose seems 
to have been held only in Pipestem District, on the 27th day of 
April, 1871. We are unable to ascertain from the records, which 
are very meager, for what purpose this township election was held. 
The only record is as follows : 

"In the township of Pipestem 255 votes were cast for ratification 
and ten votes for rejection." 

This may have been an election for the adoption of a new road 
law, the ratification of the Act of the Legislature forming Summers 
County, the amendment of the Constitution, or for any other pur- 
pose, so far as the records disclose. 

Hon. William Haynes resigned as a member of the board for 
Greenbrier District, and Archie Allen was elected to fill the va- 
cancy. James Boyd, assessor, resigned his office as such at this 
term of the board (May 3, 1871). Allen H. Meador, afterwards 
clerk of the circuit court for six years and president of the county 
court for six years, and an uncle of the present county clerk of this 
county, Jos. M. Meador, was appointed in the stead of Mr. Boyd. 

Jacob C. Allen was the first constable of Forest Hill District, 
and was the first in the county, being appointed on the third day 
of May, 1871. And on this day James Keatley was granted license 
to keep a hotel and sell "ardent" liquors at the mouth of Indian 
Creek. This was the first liquor license ever granted in the county. 
Mr. Keatley, several years afterwards, again applied to the county 
court for license to retail spirituous liquors at the same place, being 
represented in making the application by the late Col. James W. 
Davis, an attorney of Greenbrier County, which application was 
refused, at which action of the court he was very much disgusted, 
took a bill of exceptions for an appeal to the circuit court, but, of 
course, was defeated, as the action of the county court was final 
in such matters. John Richmond was granted a license to keep 
a house of private entertainment at the mouth of Lick Creek, and 
John Richmond & Company to sell "ardent" spirits at the same 
place; D. J. Cogbill to sell the "ardent" between Capt. Menifee's 
and the "Big Ben Tunnel," and Thos. F. Park to keep a hotel and 
sell the "ardent" on "Big Ben Tunnel" Mountain. 

At this date the board ordained that the former order, in re the 



132 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



location of the court house be rescinded, and the location of the 
court house be postponed until the location of the depot of the 
Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad is determined. 

The next meeting of this board was held at the mouth of Green- 
brier River on the third Monday in May in the one-story log store- 
house still standing. Rev. Rufus Pack was allowed $63.00 for labor, 
etc., for erecting jury rooms. Samuel Huffman, one of the most 
substantial citizens of the county, and who still resides on Wolf 
Creek, an aged and respected Christian gentleman, and Samuel K. 
Boude, the father of our present genial clerk of the circuit court, 
and Major Richard Woodrum, were each appointed road surveyors. 
We take it that the law at that time authorized the Board of Super- 
visors to "appoint" the jurors for the county, and each juror, both 
petit and grand, was elected by the Board of Supervisors and 
summoned by the sheriff. The board at this meeting made an 
order that it should meet once in each month. 

The first record of any ferry established by the new county was 
made by the Board of Supervisors on the 9th day of June, 1871, by 
an order granted to Nathan Meadows for a ferry across Greenbrier 
River. This ferry was located at Foss, across Greenbrier River 
at its mouth, now owned by A. E. and Charles Lewis Miller, and 
the rates of ferriage were fixed as follows : 



No provision being made for transportation of any other property. 
At the June Term, Andrew L. Lilly, was appointed overseer of the 
poor for Jumping Branch Township, and was the first overseer of 
the poor of the county. The keeping of the paupers in those days 
for the county was sold out to the lowest bidder at the court house. 
The county was not the owner of any pauper farm or regular place 
for maintenance of the poor, and at that time and most of the time 
to the present, the keeping of the paupers was sold out to the lowest 
bidder annually. 

The Board seemed to be pestered with the question of the court 
house site, and on the 19th day of June, 1871, entered the following 
order : 

"Be it ordained by the board that the order postponing the time 
for the location of the site of the court house until the location of 
the depot of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad is hereby rescinded, 



Foot passengers 

Horse and rider 

Two horses and wagon 

And for every additional horse 



$ .05 
.10 
.25 
.05 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 133 



and the following order is made: 'Be it ordained by the Board of 
Supervisors of the county of Summers that the board determine, 
by vote of same, whether the site of the court house and other pub- 
lic buildings shall be on the north bank of Greenbrier River on the 
land of Messrs. Hinton, immediately on the line between Hinton 
and Bolinges (intended for Ballangee), or whether the same shall 
be located on the north bank of Greenbrier River immediately above 
the residence and orchard of Evi Ballangee.' " 

The vote was then taken and resulted as follows : Supervisors 
Joseph Cox and Harrison Gwinn voting to locate said site on the 
lands of the Messrs. Hinton, immediately on the line between Hin- 
ton and Ballangee, and Supervisors Samuel Allen, Archie Allen and 
James Houchins voting to locate said site on the north bank of 
Greenbrier River, immediately above the residence and orchard of 
Evi Ballangee. And the board this day selected iy 2 acres of land 
lying on the north bank of Greenbrier, above the residence of said 
Ballangee, upon which to locate the court house and other public 
buildings of the county. Said 1^2 acres of land was described by 
metes and bounds. 

On the 17th day of July, the following order was entered, in re 
court house site: 

"Be it ordained by the Board of Supervisors that the word 
'Greenbrier' be erased from the order designating the site of the 
location for the court house and other public buildings." 

Evidently the location of these buildings was waxing warm in 
those days. The place of voting at New Richmond in Green Sul- 
phur Township was established on the 17th day of July, 1871, by 
the Board of Supervisors. Robert A. Vincent, heretofore men- 
tioned, was, on July 17th, appointed overseer of the poor for Green 
Sulphur Township, and was the first to ever hold that office in that 
district. It would seem that Mr. Vincent was bound to have an 
office, and the court, in order to dispose of the matter, not being 
able to make him a "squire," made him an overseer of the poor, 
and that, for the time being, satisfied his official ambition. 

The first disbursement of public money of the county was by 
an order entered on the 17th day of July, 1871, and was the authority 
for the payment of $63.00 allowed to Rufus Pack : the second was 
to M. A. Manning for five dollars for services rendered in securing 
books, stationery, etc. The third Monday in August, 1871, an 
allowance was made of $336.53 to Thomas F. Park & Company, 
for books, paper, etc. 

The keeping of the paupers for the first year of the history of 



134 . HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the county was let to R. C. Lilly, the lowest bidder, for $600.00. 
The ferry at Talcott was established for Griffith Meadows on the 
third Monday in August, 1871, and the rates of ferriage were fixed 
as follows : 

Two horses and wagon. . . $ .25 

One way for every additional horse 05 

Horse and rider 10 

Foot passengers 05 

- This ferry is still in existence, never having been discontinued. 
This ferry was established at what was known then as Rollinsburg, 
now Talcott, Rollinsburg being the name of the post office at that 
place up to the time of the building of the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- 
road through this county in 1872. 

An allowance of $20.00 rent was made at this term to the trus- 
tees of the Greenbrier Baptist Church for its use as a court house 
for one year. The first assessment of land and property of the 
county was made by Allen H. Meador, who was appointed, as 
stated before, to succeed James Boyd, resigned, for which services 
Mr. Meador was allowed at this term of the court the sum of 
$225.00. Marion Gwinn was allowed the sum of $200.00 for clerking 
for the Board of Supervisors, and the following is the first order 
for taxation made in the county : 

"Be it ordained by the board that a levy of eighty-five cents 
per one hundred dollars assessed valuation be and is hereby made 
upon the land and property of the county of Summers, to defray 
the expenses of same." 

Rufus H. Shumate was granted a license to retail "ardent" 
spirits at Mercer Salt Works, which was near the mouth of Lick 
Creek in the upper end of Pipestem Township, and about twenty- 
five miles from the court house. 

On the third day of September, 1871, the board entered an 
order directing Joseph Keaton, surveyor of the county, to make a 
complete map of the county, which map was made by Mr. Keaton, 
and is the only map ever made or authorized by the county au- 
thorities. 

The first election held in the county seems to have been on the 
26th day of October, 1871, and was for the election of senators 
and delegates to the Legislature. Summers, at that time was in 
the delegate district, composed of Monroe, Greenbrier and Sum- 
mers, from which three members of the Legislature were elected. 
At this election also a member of the constitutional convention 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 135 



was elected from the senatorial district. The Board of Supervisors 
met at the mouth of Greenbrier to canvass the vote. The following 
county and other officers were elected : 

John Sims, for supervisor of Greenbrier Township; James 
Hutchinson, for supervisor of Forest Hill Township ; James- Houch- 
ins, for supervisor of Pipestem Township ; Levi Neely, for super- 
visor of Jumping Branch Township ; A. A. Miller, for supervisor 
of Green Sulphur Township. 

The following township officers were elected: For Greenbrier 
Township, Henry Milburn and C. R. Hines, justices of the peace; 
James Boyd and George W. Chattin, inspectors of election ; con- 
stables, S. W. Willey and C. A. Miller; school commissioners, 
William H. Barger and A. C. Kesler; overseer of the poor, C. K. 
Rollyson; township clerk, Henry F. Kesler. 

For Forest Hill the following township officers were elected: 
Township clerk, A. E. Cotton; justice of the peace, Samuel K. 
Boude ; inspectors of election, L. D. Garten and S. Simms ; con- 
stable, J. C. Allen; school commissioners, J. K. Sanders and Richard 
Woodrum ; overseer of the poor, Goodall Garten. 

For Pipestem Township the following officers were elected: 
Township clerk, Joseph Keaton ; justice of the peace, James Farley; 
inspectors of election, Ellison and William Hughes ; constable, 
Reuben Hopkins ; overseer of the poor, William Crump ; overseer 
of roads, Evan B. Neely. 

For Jumping Branch the following township officers were 
elected: Township clerk, John H. Lilly; justice of the peace, John 
F. Deeds; inspectors of election, John A. Lilly and W. P. Lilly; 
constable, Mathias Crook; school commissioners, Robert P. Lilly 
and William C. Dobbins ; overseer of the poor, Preston Pack. 

For Green Sulphur Township the following officers were elected : 
For supervisor, A. A. Miller ; township clerk, G. W. Goddard; jus- 
tice of the peace, M. Gwinn ; inspectors of election, John Hix and 
S. F. Taylor; constable, William R. Taylor; school commissioners, 
M. Hutchinson, T. A. George and C. W. Withrow ; overseer of the 
poor, R. A. Vincent ; surveyor of roads, J. H. Martin, M. Dunbar and 
James Cales. 

These names are nearly all familiar, many of them still being 
residents of the county, but some have gone to their great ac- 
counting and some have gone to foreign parts. They were nearly 
all personally known to the writer. Those mentioned from Green 
Sulphur Township, I notice, are all dead, except Hon. M. Gwinn, 
C. W. Withrow and Thomas A. George. 



136 



'HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The supervisors or commissioners of election in those days 
seem to have been elected as well as road surveyors by the vote of 
the people. At this meeting of the board, which was for the pur- 
pose of canvassing the vote, a license was granted to William Gwinn 
to sell "ardent" spirits at the mouth of Meadow Creek. 

The records do not give the vote for county or district officers. 
It sets forth simply the names of those who received a majority 
and were elected. We find for other offices, however, the vote set 
out in full, and we find the results as follows: 

"The Board of Supervisors of the county of Summers, having 
carefully and impartially examined the returns of the election held 
on the 26th day of October, do hereby certify that in said county 
for the office of representative for the Senatorial district in the 
State Constitutional Convention, Samuel Price received 509 votes 
and William McCreery received 205 votes ; and for the office of 
representative for the delegate district in the state constitutional 
convention, Henr}^ M. Mathews received 520 votes, James M. Burn- 
side received 474 votes, and William Haynes received 613 votes." 

Samuel Price was ex-Lieutenant Governor of the State of Vir- 
ginia; William McCreery was the father of our townsman, Mr. 
James T. McCreery, and resided in Raleigh County. Henry M. 
Mathews was afterwards Attorney-General and Governor of the 
State. William Haynes was elected to the Constitutional Conven- 
tion, and was also elected to the State Senate later. 

At the first meeting of the Board of Supervisors held after the 
election, which was January 2, 1872, James A. Hutchinson, of Forest 
Hill Township, was elected president ; M. Gwinn was again ap- 
pointed clerk, and the newly elected members, A. A. Miller, Levi 
Neely and John Simms, took their seats and composed the board 
until that office was abolished under the new Constitution, which 
took effect January 1, 1873. Mr. James A. Hutchinson, elected 
president of the board, was a resident of Forest Hill Township, 
and died in the year 18 — . He was a Republican in politics, having 
been a W T hig before the War. His children and descendants reside 
in the county. A more detailed family history will be given later 
in this work. 

At this time a controversy arose, the effects of which are still 
felt by a large part of the citizens of the county, in regard to the 
destruction of the county road by the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad 
Company, between Hinton and New Richmond. The railroad com- 
pany was constructing its track and destroying the road which fol- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 137 

lowed the river between those points, it being impossible to build 
a railroad without obstructing or destroying the county road, by 
reason of the hills coming down to the margin of the river. An 
agreement was entered into between the board and the vice-presi- 
dent of the road, W. T. Wickam, by the terms of which the board 
agreed that the railroad company should proceed with its work until 
the grading was completed, at which time the company should 
replace the county road in as good repair as it was before the 
obstructions. The railroad company went on and completed its 
road, and, when it came to replacing the county road, as railway 
companies and some corporations frequently do, disregarded their 
contracts, agreements and moral obligations. The county court, 
from the orders entered, showed that they were unable to get the 
county road replaced. The railway company was likely to go into 
the hands of a receiver in bankruptcy in order to pay for its con- 
struction. The county court appointed M. Gwinn as commissioner 
to make a settlement, which was done by the acceptance of 
$3,000.00; the court and Mr. Gwinn going on the hypothesis that 
something was better than nothing. 

This is an instance of the infidelity of foreign corporations to 
promises of which they can squirm out. Having taken the county 
road bed, it was a matter of very considerable cost to replace the 
county road, and it may be years before the people in that part of 
the county will have a practical county road, upon which they can 
travel from Green Sulphur to the court house. The road was of 
no consequence, but the loss of the road bed and right of way was 
wherein the people suffered. 

The Board of Supervisors seems to have been an economical 
and provident body, and required full time to be given by those 
engaged in the public service, as will be observed from an order 
made at the January Term, 1872, in which it "appointed the as- 
sessor, surveyor, sheriff and recorder a committee to correct the 
land books of the county," and required them to meet at the clerk's 
office on the third Monday in March, at nine o'clock a. m., 1872, 
for that purpose, and that they adjourn on the following Wed- 
nesday at four o'clock p. m. 

We note that on the third Monday in February, 1872, James 
Houchins voted against approving the record of the last prior 
meeting. It seems that they had obstreperous members in those 
days, as well as at the present time. 

John K. Withrow, of Green Sulphur District, was appointed 



138 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



at that term of the court as constable. James A. Houchins, the 
president, was appointed to visit the paupers, and he was also 
directed to visit Reuben Johnson and try to procure for him a 
bounty from "Uncle Sam" for some kind of public services rendered 
some time in the past. Our old friend, I. G. Carden, was appointed 
an auctioneer at that time, and holds the appointment to this day. 
License to retail "ardent" spirits was granted to Dr. J. G. Manser 
at the mouth of Greenbrier. 

There seems to have been wolves and varmints in the county 
in those days, which were not desirable in the development of the 
country, and we find the following order recorded at the February 
Term, 1872 : 

"Be it ordained by the board that an allowance of $35.00 be and 
is hereby allowed for the killing of grown wolves, and half price 
for all under six months of age. Said wolves to be killed within 
the bounds of the county." 

I do not find but one record of an allowance having been made 
under this order, which was to James R. Wheeler, and is as follows : 

"James R. Wheeler was allowed for one grown wolf killed, 
$35.00; three half-grown wolves, $52.50." 

It seems that the board must have had some unruly litigants 
and advocates from the order entered at this sitting, from which 
the following order grew, in order to improve the manners of those 
in attendance : 

"No person shall be allowed to interrupt another while address- 
ing the board in regard to any matter in which the speaker may 
be concerned, and, further, that any insult offered any member 
while engaged in the business of the board, will be proceeded 
against according to law." 

The question of the purchase of a poor farm began to agitate 
the county authorities from the beginning, and on the 20th day of 
May, 1872, James Houchins and James Roles, who then resided 
near the mouth of Bluestone River, where Jonathan Lee Barker 
now resides, were appointed a committee to inquire into the expe- 
diency of purchasing a poor farm. 

It seems that the circuit court at that time also had to stir up 
these authorities in regard to seating the court room, as we do at 
this time, and an order was entered requiring the same to be pro- 
vided. 

I find the delinquent taxes for the year ending the first Wed- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



139 



nesday in August, 1872, were as follows, and were allowed to Evan 



Hinton, then sheriff : 

Green Sulphur Township $248.41 

Greenbrier Township 135.93 

Pipestem Township 49.08 

Jumping Branch Township 22.13 

Forest Hill Township 95.30 



For the year 1905 I find the delinquent tax allowed to H. Ewart, 



sheriff, as follows : 

Greenbrier $238.18 

Green Sulphur. 161.19 

Forest Hill. 19.97 

Pipestem 35.19 

Jumping Branch 187.85 

Talcott 173.41 



The amount of the tax tickets coming into the hands of the 
sheriff in 1904 being $50,000 approximately, and not including rail- 
way taxes, which is a remarkable showing, considering the increase 
in taxable property and funds coming into the sheriff's hands, and 
a better showing for no sheriff in any -county can be had, we will 
warrant, in the United States, than the showing for the sheriff of 
this county, Mr. H. Ewart. M. Gwinn was appointed the first com- 
missioner to settle with the sheriff, which was on May 20, 1872. 

R. C. Lilly was allowed at this date $900.00 for pauper allow- 
ance, which was for maintaining the paupers from June 20, 1872, 
to June 20, 1873. 

Ellison's voting' precinct in Jumping Branch District was es- 
tablished at Francis Ellison's house on the 20th day of May, 1872, 
and also the voting precinct at the clerk's office was established. 

The amount of the county levy coming into the hands of Evan 
Hinton, sheriff during the first year's existence of the county as a 
municipality was $6,454.20, of which he owed on settlement 
$3,378.69, after all allowances. 

I find the amount of funds coming into the hands of the sheriff 
for the year 1904, the last' sheriff's settlement preceding this date, 
was $ . 

The next general election held in the county was on the adop- 
tion of the ratification or rejection of the new and present Consti- 
tution, now in force in this State, subject to the more recent amend- 



140 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



merits, and also for State officers. The result in this county, so 



far as is disclosed by the records, is as follows : 

For ratification of the Constitution and Schedule 451 votes 

For rejection 262 



Total vote in the county. 713 

For Governor: 

J. N. Camden, Democrat 480 

J. J. Jacobs, Independent 290 

For Attorney-General : 

H. M. Mathews, Democrat 516 

G. Cresap, Republican 

For Treasurer: 

John S. Burdette, Democrat 517 

W. P. Rathburne, Republican 191 

For Auditor: 

E. A. Bennett, Democrat 490 

A. M. Jacobs, Republican 199 

For Superintendent of Schools : 

B. W. Byrne, Democrat 483 

J. B. Hardwick, Republican 213 

For Judges Supreme Court of Appeals : 

A. F. Haymond 496 

James Paull 495 

J. S. Huffman 677 

R. L. Berkshire 162 

M. Edmiston 162 

E. Maxwell 162 

For House of Delegates: 

M. Gwinn, Democrat 637 

D. Fox 20 



And the following order was entered : 

"Be it ordained by the board that the following persons are 
declared elected for the following county offices: For State's at- 
torney, W. G. Ryan ; for president county court, Wm. T. Meador ; 
for sheriff, Evan Hinton ; for clerk of circuit court, A. H. Meador; 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 141 



for clerk of the county court, J. B. Pack; for surveyor, M. Smith; 
for assessor, Wellington Cox. 

"Be it ordained that the following township officers are declared 
elected: Forest Hill Township: for justice of the peace, A. L. 
Harvey; for constable, J. C. Allen. Jumping Branch Township: 
for justice of the peace, A. Parker (which was intended for J. A. 
Parker) ; for constable, J. S. Lilly. Pipestem Township : for justice 
of the peace, Robert Gore; for constable, C. M. D. Spraddling, 
Greenbrier Township; for justice of the peace, C. R. Hines and 
Henry Milburn; for constable, Alma Willey and J. P. Rollyson. 
For judge of the circuit court R. F. Dennis received 388 votes, and 
Homer A. Holt 241 votes, and J. W. Davis 78 votes, making a total 
of 607 votes cast in the county." 

This election was a general election for State and county offices, 
to be elected under the new Constitution in the event of its rati- 
fication. It was ratified in the State, and the officers elected at 
that election and those which were not vacated by the new Con- 
stitution took office on the first day of January, 1873, and under 
which the Board of Supervisors retired, and the county courts, as 
hereinafter shown, were composed of the respective justices of 
the peace, as elected at this election. 

At the Presidential election held on the 5th day of November, 
1872, Horace Greely, Independent Republican, received 290 votes, 
and U. S. Grant. 206 votes. The candidate for Vice-President at 
this election on the Independent Republican ticket was B. Gratz 
Brown. The Presidential electors on the Greeley ticket are familiar 
to many of the present citizens of Summers County, being Joseph 
Spriggs, Okey Johnson, Wm. P. Hubbard, Daniel B. Lucas and 
Edmund Sehon. The electors on the Grant ticket were W. E. 
Stevens, Thomas B. Swan, Charles F. Scott, Thomas R. Carkscadon 
and Romeo H. Frier. 

Henry Wilson was the Republican voted for for Vice-President. 
Charles O'Connor, Democrat, for President, received eighteen 
votes ; John Quincy Adams, for Vice-President, seventeen votes. 
The electors on this ticket were Thomas O'Brien, Alex White, 
A. E. Duncan, William T. Ice and John S. Swan. Horace Greeley 
was the Independent Republican candidate, and was generally sup- 
ported by the Democrats. General U. S. Grant was the Republican 
candidate, and a number of Democrats voted for General Grant. 

Not being satisfied with the action of the Democratic Conven- 
tion in ratifying the nominee, Horace Greeley, Charles O'Connor 
was nominated by a faction of the Democratic Party as the straight- 



142 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

out Democratic nominee by a convention held in Baltimore. Greeley 
was the great editor of the New York Tribune, and had shown a 
liberal disposition towards Confederate leaders after the close of 
hostilities, having, with August Belmont, gone on the bail bond of 
Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy. General U. S. 
Grant was the great Federal general to whom General Lee sur- 
rendered at Appomattox, and was generally beloved in this country 
by reason of his magnanimous action towards General Lee and 
his Confederate soldiers after the collapse of the Rebellion. 

Charles O'Connor was an eminent Democratic lawyer in the 
city of New York. Frank Hereford, who was elected to Congress, 
was a prominent attorney in Union, Monroe County, who after- 
wards served a term in the Senate of the United States at the same 
time that the Honorable Henry G. Davis, of this State, late Demo- 
cratic candidate for Vice-President, was in the Senate. Captain 
R. F. Dennis was the regular nominee for judge of the circuit 
court, and was defeated by Homer A. Holt, an independent candi- 
date. J. W. Davis was the Republican nominee. Captain Dennis 
was an officer in the Confederate Army and a distinguished lawyer 
at Lewisburg; afterwards served several years in the State Senate, 
and was a candidate for Congress, and defeated by C. P. Snyder 
for the nomination. Homer A. Holt, who was elected judge, was a 
Democrat, and was elected for a second term, and served as judge 
of the circuit court of this county and circuit for sixteen full years, 
and was afterwards elected to the Supreme Court of Appeals of the 
State, and served a term. 

J. W. Davis was a militia colonel at the beginning of the war 
and was a lawyer of great prominence in Greenbrier County, and 
only died recently at a very advanced age. After the war he was 
a Republican in politics, and so continued, but in 1896 was an 
ardent free silver advocate, and earnestly supported William J. 
Bryan, the Democratic candidate, for President, and at one time 
was the nominee of the Populist Party for Congress, and was the 
Republican nominee at one time for judge of the Supreme court 
of Appeals on the Republican ticket, and the Republican nominee 
for Congress at one or two elections in the Third District, of which 
this county was a part when the district was largely Democratic. 

I omitted to give in the foregoing statement of election the 
election returns for the county, which were as follows : 

For county superintendent of schools for the election held on 
the 26th day of October, 1871, John H. Pack received 493 votes, 
and he seems to have had no opposition for said office. For the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



143 



office of representative in the House of Delegates for the delegate 
district of Monroe, Summers and Greenbrier, for the election held 
on the 26th day of October, 1871, George Williams received 514 
votes; Gordon L. Jordan, 504 votes; A. Nelson Campbell, 511 votes; 
Robert Lilly, 84 votes ; S. W. Nickell, 58 votes, and H. P. Brown, 
63 votes. Hon Gordon L. Jordan was elected in the county, and 
was the first representative in the Legislature from Summers 
County. He resided in Pipestem District, and was the father of 
John H. Jordan, the present cashier of the Bank of Summers. C. A. 
Sperry for State Senate, at that election, received 475 votes ; S. C. 
Luddington, 123 votes. 

The elections seem to have been held frequently in that period 
of our history, the first being held on October 26, 1871 ; the second, 
August 22, 1872; the third on November 5, 1872. Those were stir- 
ring times in this region. The war having closed in April, 1865, 
reconstruction was still in progress, and under the first Constitution 
and legislation in the State a large part of the people were dis- 
franchised by reason of their either having been in the active 
service of the Confederacy, or having been sympathizers therewith. 
All those persons, which consisted of the majority and the most 
substantial class of citizens in the territory of this county, were in- 
cluded under this ban, and not permitted to vote. A strict registra- 
tion law was then in force, and every voter had to register before a 
board of registration, composed of three registrars, who were ap- 
pointed as strict partisans of the party then in power, and no person 
was permitted to register or vote unless he could subscribe to a 
certain test oath, which was in effect, "that the voter had not aided 
or abetted in the late Rebellion, or had sympathized therewith." 
This, of course, excluded all ex-Confederates and voters who sym- 
pathized with the Southern cause in any way. Every voter was 
required to register at his precinct, and if a liberal registrar saw 
proper to permit persons to register who had been in sympathy 
with the Confederate cause, when the returns were sent in to the 
county seat to the board of registrars, they deliberately threw out 
all necessary votes to make the results of the election satisfactory 
to themselves. 

For instance, in Greenbrier County, directly after the war, about 
113 voters were permitted to vote out of a vote of probably 1,500 
or 2,000. This statement is given from information, and I give it 
to show the feeling existing in those days soon after the war and 
during the stirring political times in that era. 

When the adoption of the new Constitution for ratification or 



144 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



rejection, and the first Democratic State officers were elected since 
the formation of the State, the elective franchise had been extended 
largely by reason of the Flick amendment to the Constitution, 
which amendment took its name from its author, Honorable Wm. 
H. H. Flick, a broad-minded Republican of considerable influence 
in the Legislature, and the vote at the elections taken in 1872 were 
after the adoption of this amendment, which entitled many more 
voters to participate in the elections than had heretofore been 
permitted, the restrictions in franchise and the abominations 
perpetrated upon the people of this section from the close of the 
war until the adoption of the new Constitution were not chargeable 
to the broad-minded and liberal statesmen and members of the 
Republican Party, but to those narrow-minded partisans, illiterate 
and bigoted, as well as carpet-baggers who came into the country 
as jackals follow their prey — who had not been accustomed to 
power or authority, and who did not have either the sense, honor 
or broadness of character to exercise the power which was thrust 
upon them, by reason of the conflicts, agitations and unsettled con- 
' ditions resulting and growing out of the Civil War, and the people 
in authority undertook to exercise that authority in many instances 
in the suppression of justice, but as time went on more liberal, 
broad-minded and patriotic persons came into control, and matters 
soon righted themselves. 

The feeling between the parties from 1865 to 1875 was exceed- 
ingly bitter, and the Republican Party in those days was obnoxious 
to a large class of the citizens, so-called Republican "Radicals." 

I give an instance as the result upon registration and election 
at Green Sulphur precinct, some time after the war, when I was a 
boy, and I remember distinctly upon hearing of the occurrences : 

John Gwinn was one of the respected citizens of that district, 
a brother of E. J. Gwinn, the owner of Green Sulphur Springs, who 
had been a strong Democrat before the war, but was a Union man 
and a Republican after the war, and a man of broad information 
and liberal towards his section. Mr. Gwinn was registrar for that 
precinct, which was then in Blue Sulphur District, Greenbrier 
County. When registration day came, he permitted every person 
to register — Democrat, Republican, Confederate, Union and Yankee, 
all voters He sent his returns into the court house, where there was 
a board of registration, or supervisors of election, or something of 
that kind, consisting of Joe Caldwell, who was nicknamed "Old 
Scratch," and two others whose names I have forgotten. They 
threw out the registration of Mr. Gwinn, although Mr. Gwinn was 



i 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 145 

one of their own party, and none, or but few, of the votes of that 
precinct were counted. 

The first division of the county roads of the county were laid 
off into precincts by a committee appointed by the Board of Super- 
visors on the third Monday in January, 1872. 

The committee of Pipestem Township consisted of James Rolls, 
N. H. Neely and Robert Gore; for Jumping Branch Township, 
David Lilly, Sylvester Upton and Michael Harvey; for Forest Hill 
Township, Lewis Shanklin, Lewis Simms and Joseph Ellis; for 
Green Sulphur Township. John B. Walker, Harrison Gwinn and 
David Bowles ; for Greenbrier Township, Isaac G. Carden, James 
P. Rollyson and James W. Meadows, who made the report and 
division of the county roads into precincts at the March Term. 

On the 21st day of October, 1872, the board entered the following 
order : 

"Ordered: That the clerk of this court be and is hereby required 
to communicate with Judge McWhorter, requesting him to hold a 
special term of court for Summers County for the trial of the 
criminals of the said county, now in the jail of Monroe County." 

Carlos A. Sperry was the first prosecuting attorney of Sum- 
mers County by appointment of Judge McWhorter. W. G. Ryan 
was the first elected prosecuting attorney of this county, elected 
in 1872, and took office January 1, 1873, under the new Constitution. 
J. Speed Thompson, Esq., one of the first lawyers who located in the 
county, qualified as the assistant of Mr. Ryan. On the 21st day 
of October. 1872, the following order was entered : 

'"Ordered: That William H. Lilly, son of- 'Barwallow Bob Lilly/ 
be appointed a road surveyor." 

The election records up to this date were very imperfectly kept, 
though, no doubt, entirely correct. The vote for the county officers 
is not given except in a few instances, the Board of Supervisors 
simply declaring the result, showing who were elected. 

About this time the roads up New River from the mouth of 
Greenbrier were beginning to be agitated, and the following order 
was entered : 

"Be it ordained by the board that Rufus Pack, E. B. Meador 
and John G. Manser be and are hereby appointed viewers for the 
purpose of locating a road from the Baptist Church to the mouth 
of James W. Pack's lane, and that they report to this board the 
advantages and disadvantages, etc., attending the location of same." 

At the formation of this county there was but one piano or 
musical instrument of that character in the territory of Summers 



146 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

County, and that was owned by William B. Crump, then the owner 
of Crump's Bottom, and resided at the place where Mr. George W. 
Harmon now resides, and who is the present owner of that mag- 
nificent plantation. 

The last order entered by the Board of Supervisors before it 
went out of existence was one directing a census of Green Sulphur 
District, to ascertain the population and for the purpose of inform- 
ing the authorities as to whether or not that district was entitled 
to two justices of the peace. Wm. P. Hinton was appointed to take 
the census and report to the new county court, which came in office 
January 1, 1873. This order was made on the 22d day of August, 
1872, and on that date the following and final order by the board 
was made, which is as follows : 

"Ordered: That this board adjourn sine die. (Signed), James 
A. Hutchinson, president; J. B. Pack, Deputy clerk, for M. Gwinn, 
clerk." 

From this date on the affairs of the county were conducted by' 
the county court, composed of the justices of the peace elected in 
- 1872, until an amendment to the Constitution about 1881, which 
abolished these county courts. 

After the fire which destroyed the court room occupied in Hin- 
ton, a small paper-backed book of 232 pages was used as the order 
faook of the circuit court, which would cost about fifty cents, such 
as a shoemaker would keep his accounts in. 

The first circuit court after the fire was on September 8, 1874, 
Judge Homer A. Holt being the new judge, elected in 1872, to 
succeed Judge McWhorter. Judge Holt was the father of Honor- 
able John H. Holt, who is a warm personal friend of the writer, 
now practicing law at Huntington, West Virginia, and is one of 
the most celebrated lawyers of the State. He and the writer ran 
together on the Democratic ticket in 1900, Mr. Holt being the 
nominee for governor, and the writer was chairman of the Demo- 
cratic State Executive Committee and nominee for auditor. 

At the time of the above-named term of the court, ex-Governor 
Samuel Price, of Lewisburg, and Hon. John W. Harris and F. P. 
Snyder of Pocahontas, a brother of Judge Adam Snyder, were 
admitted to practice in this circuit, and the following order was 
entered : 

"Samuel Price, John W. Harris and C. P. Snyder, gentlemen 
who are regularly licensed attorneys to practice law in the courts 
of this State, on their several motions, have leave to practice in 
this court, whereupon they took the oath prescribed by law." 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 147 



James A. Hutchinson and twelve other gentlemen composed 
the grand jury, one of whom was honorable Gordan L. Gordan ; 
another was Capt. A. A. Miller, A. P. Pence and James Cales. Only 
two days' proceedings being recorded in this book, covering about 
six pages, the orders being signed by Judge Holt. 

Charles H. Graham was appointed and qualified as notary pub- 
lic, and executed bond before the county court on the 10th day of 
September, 1878, with John Graham as security. E. H. Peck was 
elected clerk of the county court on the 30th day of August, 1873, 
and on the 8th day of September of that year, executed bond before 
the judge of the circuit court, with Elbert Fowler, T. R. Wiseman, 
C. R. Hines and Joseph Ellis as his sureties. Mr. Peck was ap- 
pointed commissioner in chancery of the circuit court on the 12th 
day of April, 1875, and gave bond, with M. Smith, G. W. Chattin 
and Elbert Fowler as his security. 

The circuit court then had authority to appoint administrators 
and qualify personal representatives. M. Smith was appointed 
commissioner of school lands on the 10th day of September, 1878, 
and held that office until his death, about twenty-five years. John 
K. Withrow was appointed constable on the 15th day of September, 
1879, with S. F. Taylor as his surety. M. Gwinn gave bond as clerk 
of the Board of Supervisors on the 28th day of March, 1871. Wil- 
liam Hughes was appointed justice of Pipestem Township on the 
29th day of April, 1871. 

Revenue stamps were required on all legal documents at the 
time of the formation of the county, and were continued for a 
number of years, in order to pay off or reduce the debt of the gen- 
eral government contracted in prosecution of the Rebellion. 

John H. Pack w r as appointed by Judge McWhorter as the first 
superintendent of schools for the county, and gave bond on May 3, 
1871, in the sum of $500.00, with C. E. Stevenson, Allen H. Meador 
and William T. Meador as his sureties. Allen H. Meador gave 
bond as assessor on the 3rd day of May, 1871, with David Lilly 
and Wm. H. Meador as his surety ; penalty, $3,000. Jacob C. 
Allen was the first constable in Forest Hill District, and gave bond 
May 4, 1871, with Samuel Allen as his surety; penalty, $1,000. 
John Graham, the first commissioner of school lands for the county, 
qualified and gave bond on the 26th day of September, 1871 ; $2,000 
penalty, with David Graham and Joseph Grimm ett as sureties. 
John F. Deeds gave bond as justice of the peace November 29, 1871, 
to hold until January 1, 1876; Levi M. Neely, W. T. Meador and 
A. J. Martin, sureties; penalty, $3,000. M. Gwinn gave bond as 



148 



HISTORY OF -SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



justice of the peace of Green Sulphur District; penalty, $3,000, 
with H. Gwinn as surety, on January 1, 1872. Mathias Cook gave 
bond as constable in Jumping Branch District, with W. T. Meador 
and G. W. Crook, as sureties ; Charles N. Miller gave bond on the 
27th day of December, 1871, as constable of Greenbrier District, 
with John Buckland as surety ; S. W. Willey gave bond as con- 
stable of Greenbrier District on December , 1871, in the pen- 
alty of $3,000; Samuel K. Boude gave bond in December, 1871, as 
justice of the Forest Hill District, with I. G. Carden and James A. 
Hutchinson, sureties; penalty, $2,000; Henry Milburn gave bond 
as justice of the peace of Greenbrier Township, with S. W. Willey, 
surety, on December , 1871; penalty, $4,000; Reuben Hop- 
kins gave bond as constable of Pipestem District, December 30, 
1871 ; penalty, $2,000, with James Cook and Milburn Farley, 
sureties. 

Evan Hinton, sheriff, was required to give an additional bond 
on the 10th day of December. 1872. in the penalty of $8,000, with 
Silas Hinton, John Hinton and Avis Hinton as sureties, which was 
- approved by J. M. McWhorter, judge. James Farley gave bond as 
justice of the peace of Pipestem District July 1, 1871, with T. R. 
Thrasher and James Roles as sureties. Allen H. Meador executed 
bond as clerk of the circuit court on the 25th day of September, 
1872, with Wm. T. Meador and John A. Lilly as sureties. M. Smith 
as surveyor gave bond on the 25th day of September, 1872, with 
A. L. Harvey as surety, in the penalty of $1,000. Alma Willey gave 
bond as constable, with S. W. Willey, surety, on the 22d day of 
October, 1871, as constable of Greenbrier Township. 

Evan Hinton was elected first sheriff of the county on the 22d 
day of August, 1872. J. H. Harvey was appointed deputy assessor 
for Wellington Cox on the 8th day of April. 1873. and gave bond, 
with Wellington Cox and R. C. Lilly as his sureties, in the penalty 
of $1,500.00. Wellington Cox was the first elected assessor, and 
executed bond, with John Lilly and W. T. Meador as sureties : 
John Lilly, constable of Jumping Branch District, gave bond, with 
Andrew J. Lilly, surety, on the 19th day of October. 1872 ; Robert 
Gore qualified as justice of the peace of Pipestem District, De- 
cember 20, 1872, with E. B. Meador as surety, in the penalty of 
$2,000 ; John H. Pack executed bond as elected school superinten- 
dent, December, 1872, with Rufus Pack, surety, in the penalty of 
$500.00 : M. Gwinn gave bond as clerk of the Board of Supervisors, 
with A. A. Miller as surety, on the second day of January, 1872 : 
T. R. Maddy was elected constable of Greenbrier District, and gave 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 149 



bond on the 31st day of December, 1876; C. L. Ellison was the 
second elected superintendent of free schools, and gave bond, with 
I. G. Carden, surety, taking office on the first day of January, 1874. 
Superintendent of schools, under the law in those days, held office 
for two years. 

M. A. Manning qualified as a notary public at the September 
Term, 1873, with S. W. Willey as surety ; Joseph F. Wood executed 
bond as constable of Pipestem District on the 30th day of August, 
1873 ; S. W. Willey was elected constable on the 30th day of Au- 
gust, 1873 ; C. L. Thompson qualified as a notary public on the 4th 
day of December, 1873, by giving bond, with W. G. Ryan, surety; 
W. G. Ryan qualified as a notary public on the 24th day of Oc- 
tober, 1873, with C. L. Thompson, surety. 

The first appropriation for the building of the bridge across 
Indian Creek, at its mouth, was made at the March Term, 1873, 
and placed in the hands of James Keatley and Joseph J. Christian, 
afterwards president of the county court. 

At the March Term, 1873, an order was entered, directing the 
prosecuting attorney to condemn an acre and a half of the land of 
Evi Ballangee for a court house and other public buildings at the 
mouth of Greenbrier River, it having been decided to construct the 
court buildings on the Ballangee place just below the ford and 
ferry at the mouth of the river, but this order of the court was 
never carried into effect. 

In 1874 the round-house in Hinton was under construction. It 
was 900 feet in circumference. A large portion of the foundation 
was made by excavation in the cliffs. The work was done by 
Alexander Atkinson, a native of Ireland, and who, with his brother, 
Frank Atkinson, of White Sulphur Springs, built the "Stretchers' 
Neck" Tunnel on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. 



CHAPTER X. 



SOME CHRONOLOGICAL DATA. 

Colonel Abraham Wood was the first to cross the Blue Ridge 
and to discover New River, and to call it Wood's River, in 1654. 
In 1666 Captain Henry Batte was the next to cross the Blue 
Ridge. 1716 — Governor Spottswood crossed the Blue Ridge, and 
claimed the honor of being the first, and for which he was knighted. 
He crossed at the Swift Run Gap. 1726 — Morgan Morgan, a 
Welshman, was the first man to build a house west of the Blue 
Ridge and south of the Potomac. 1727 — Cornstalk was born in 
the New River Valley, within the limits of Greenbrier County, 
and it is possible that it was within the territory of Summers 
County. 1737 — John Sailing, captured on the James River, crossed 
New River en route for the Cherokee towns. He was probably 
the first white man to cross New River. 1734 — Orange County 
was formed, which embraced all of the territory west of the Blue 
Ridge. 1735 — Christian, Beverly, Patton, Preston and Borden 
settlements in the New River Valley of Virginia. 1736 — John 
Sailing, mentioned heretofore, who was six years in captivity, 
made a setlement on the James River below the Natural Bridge, 
which was the first settlement on the James River west of that 
mountain. 1738 — Augusta County formed; organized in 1745. 
Staunton was laid out in this year, and Winchester had two 
houses therein. 174-4 — Rapin De Thoyer's map issued, giving wild 
guesses at the geography of the great West. 1748 — Dr. Thomas 
Walker crossed New River in the direction of Kentucky. In the 
same year the Draper-Meadows settlement was made by Ingles 
and Draper. 1749 — the Loyal Land Company organized by 
Walker, Patton and others, based on a grant of 800,000 acres of 
land lying north of the North Carolina line and west of the moun- 
tains. In April occurred the first Indian depredations Avest of the 
Alleghenies, upon Adam Harman, at the Draper-Meadows settle- 
ment. It was in this year that a lunatic from Winchester wan- 
dered across the mountains westward ; found the waters flowing 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 151 

in an opposite direction, and reported same on his return. He also 
reported the fine hunting and fine lands in the Greenbrier Valley, 
from which report adventurers began to make their way into this 
region. In the same year De Celeron, the French engineer, planted 
the leaden plate at the mouth of the Kanawha, claiming all of the 
territory drained by that river for the French crown. 

1750 — Jacob Marlin and Steven Sewell, influenced by the ac- 
counts of the lunatic, came out and settled at Marlin's Bottom, at 
the mouth of Knapp's Creek, in Pocahontas County. One of them 
was a Catholic and the other was a Protestant, and they quarreled 
over their religion and separated, one locating in a hollow tree in 
speaking distance of the other. They would get up in the morn- 
ing and salute each other, and that was. all the communication they 
would have during the day. It was Colonel John Lewis, who came 
to survey the Greenbrier grants, and there discovered them, and it 
was this same year Dr. Thos. Walker crossed New River, Holstine 
and Clinch by way of Culbertson's (Crump's) Bottom, returning 
along Flat Top Mountain by the present site of Pocahontas (town), 
down Bluestone to New River; down New River to the mouth of 
Greenbrier; up Greenbrier and Anthony's Creek, and over the 
mountain by the Hot and Warm Springs. 1751 — Thos. Ingles was 
born at Draper-Meadows, being the first white child born 
west of the Allegheny Mountains. 1751 — Greenbrier River re- 
ceived its name by Colonel John Lewis. 1752 — Peter Fontain, a 
surveyor, made a map, which is a very crude affair, a copy of which 
will be found with Hale's Trans-Allegheny Pioneers. 1753 — 
George Washington, accompanied by Christopher Gist, was the 
bearer of communications to the commander of the French, and 
he says that Frazier's Cabin, on Peak Creek, in Burke's Garden, 
was then the ultima thule of Western settlement. 1754 — George 
Washington surprises a party of French near the Great Meadows, 
killing Captain Joumonville, the French commander. He captured 
or killed every man of the French. It was the first blood shed in 
the French and Indian war, and resulted in the loss of Can- 
ada to the French. In the same year Washington was compelled 
to capitulate to the French at Fort Necessity. In the same year 
Pack's Ferry was located and settlement begun. James Burke set- 
tles in Burke's Garden, and is murdered by the Indians. In the 
same year Joseph Reed settles at Dublin; a McCorkle family set- 
tles at Dunkard's Bottom, near Ingle's Ferry. 1755 — Simon 
Girty and his brothers, George and James, were captured at Gir- 
ty's Run, not far from Pittsburg. In this year the Draper-Mead- 



152 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

ows settlement was attacked, and ail of the settlers massacred. 
1755 — Braddock's defeat at Fort Duquesne. Mary Ingles and Betty 
Draper were the first white women in the Kanawha Valley, and 
they helped to make the first salt ever made by white persons in 
the Kanawha, or elsewhere west of the Alleghenies. 1756 — Settle- 
ments again made west of New River. Vass' Fort built under the 
direction of Captain Hogg, by the advice of George Washington, 
in the Middle New River country. Vass' Fort captured by a party 
of Indians and French, and all the inmates murdered or taken 
prisoners. Big Sandy expedition under Major Andrew Lewis was 
made the same year. 1757 — New River lead mines were discov- 
ered by Colonel Chiswell, and operations begun to develop the 
same. Daniel Boone was married in this year on the Yadkin, in 
North Carolina. 1758 — Fort Duquesne captured by General For- 
bes and named Fort Pitt. Fort Chiswell, in Wythe County, was 
built under the direction of Colonel William Byrd. 1759 — The 
Decker settlement on the Monongalia destroyed, and every one 
killed except one. 1760 — An Indian raiding party surprised Wil- 
liam Ingles near Ingles' Ferry, and seven Indians killed and one 
white man. Selim, the Algerine of remarkable history, passed up 
the Kanawha Valley in seach of white settlements. He was a 
wealthy and educated Arab ; was captured in the Mediterranean 
Sea by Spanish pirates ; was sold to a Louisville planter, escaped, 
made his way to the Mississippi and up the Ohio. Somewhere be- 
low the Kanawha he met with some white persons, and a woman 
among them told him, as best she could in sign language, to go 
toward the rising sun and he would find white settlements. It 
was just about this time that the Indian raid had been made 
through this valley, after the Jackson's River settlements, when 
the Renic family and Hannah Dennis were made prisoners, and 
it was probably these that he met who told him of the Eastern 
settlements. He turned up the Kanawha V alley, up New River to 
the mouth of the Greenbrier, and was finally discovered almost 
naked and nearly starved, when he had passed up the Greenbrier, 
through Monroe to near the Warm Springs, in the Allegheny 
Mountains. He was taken care of. Through a Greek testament 
which he had on his person, some ministers who saw him discov- 
ered that he was a good Greek scholar, and communication was 
thus opened up between him and the ministers, who were profi- 
cient in Greek. Selim studied English, became a Christian, and 
returned to his home in Algiers, where he was repudiated by his 
parents because he had given up the Moslem for the Christian re- 



JAS. H. MILLER'S RESIDENCE, 
Hinton, 1905. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



153 



ligion. He returned to America heart-broken, and finally died 
in an insane hospital. He passed over in these wanderings almost 
forty miles of the territory of Summers County, by where Hin- 
ton and Talcott are now located. This was before there was a 
white settlement within the county or in all this region, even 
in the Kanawha Valley. 1761 — The Cherokee War was terminated. 

1762 — Archibald Clendennin and others settled on Muddy Creek 
and Big Levels, now Greenbrier County, about eight or ten miles 
from the Summers line. Ingle's Ferry established by law this 
year, the first Ferry established west of the Allegheny Mountains. 

1763 — Hannah Dennis escaped from the Indian captivity, making 
her way through this valley, and after great suffering reached the 
Muddy Creek setlement. In the same year Cornstalk made his 
raid with the Indians, passed up the Greenbrier Valley, and ex- 
terminated the Muddy Creek and Big Levels settlements. 1763 — 
The final treaty of peace between the French and English at Paris 
(Treaty of Paris). 1764 — Captain Paul's Indian fight at the mouth 
of Indian Creek. In the same year Matthew Arbuckle, the ances- 
tor of that honorable family in Greenbrier County, of which Sena- 
tor John W. Arbuckle is the most prominent descendant at this day, 
a hunter and trapper from the Greenbrier region, passed down the 
Kanawha Valley with furs for a trading post at Point Pleasant and 
returned, being the first man to perform so formidable a feat. Three 
hundred prisoners were recovered this year by Colonel Boquet, in 
Ohio, he being the French commander. 1765 — Sir William John- 
son's treaty of peace with the Indians, the result of Boquet's cam- 
paign. Michael Cresap owned 300 acres of land and settled the 
same in 1763, on Redstone. 1766 — Butler and Carr hunted and 
trapped about the heads of Bluestone and Clinch Rivers. 1767 — 
Butler, Carr and others settled families at the head of Bluestone 
River. 1768 — George Washington, R. H. Lee, F. L. Lee and Ar- 
thur Lee petitioned King George for two and one-half million 
acres of Western lands in the Mississippi country. 1769 — Eben- 
ezer, Silas and Jonathan Zane located lands at W T heeling Creek, in 
Ohio County. In that year a man by the name of Tygart was the 
solitary owner of a cabin on the Ohio River below Wheeling, pos- 
sibly the same man who settled Tygart's Valley in 1754. John 
Stewart, Robert McClanahan, Thomas Renic and William Hamil- 
ton settled in the Greenbrier country where Frankfort is now situ- 
ated. In this year George Washington surveyed for John Frye 
2,084 acres of land at the forks of Big Sandy, at the present site 
of Louisa. Washington was at the mouth of the Great Kanawha 



154 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the same year, looking over his own lands, and his agent, Colonel 
Crawford, was with him. Camp Union, now Lewisburg, was built 
1770. 1771 — Simon, Keaton, Yager and Strater were the first white 
men to camp in the Kanawha Valley. They settled about the 
mouth of Two-Mile Creek, on Elk River. Colonel Andrew Don- 
ally built Donally's Fort; Colonel John Stewart built Fort Spring, 
and Captain Jarrett built Jarrett's Fort, at the mouth of Wolf 
Creek. \772- — Clarksburg was built. The mineral virtue of the 
Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs was first tested by the whites. 
It had long been a famous elk and deer lick among the 
Indians. A German named Stroud settled on the glades. His 
family was murdered by the Indians, for which Captain Bull 
and five families of Indians living at Bulltown were murdered by 
William White and William Hacker in retaliation for the massa- 
cre of the Stroud family. In 1773 the highest water, according to 
tradition, that was ever known in the New River Valley or the 
Kanawha. This tradition comes through Ballenger, the recluse. 
In this year Walter Kelley, a refugee from South Carolina, settled 
at Kelley's Creek, nineteen miles above Charleston. In 1772 the 
McAfee brothers, McCown, Adams and others, including Colonel 
Bullit and Hancock Taylor, from the New River settlements, went 
to Kentucky to locate and survey lands. They located and sur- 
veyed Big Bone Lick, July 5th. They located the city of Frank- 
fort on Juh' 15th, and Louisville on August 5th. John and Peter 
Van Bibber, Rev. Joseph Alderson and Matthew Arbuckle, passed 
from Jarrett's Fort down Greenbrier, New River and Kanawha, 
and they discovered the Burning Spring on the Kanawha in this 
year. The Van Bibbers had an exciting time with the Indians at 
Kanawha Falls, where the Van Bibber Cut of the C. & O. is lo- 
cated. The Indians pursued them, and they jumped from the top 
of that embankment and escaped by swimming across. 177-1 — 
William Morris settled at the mouth of Kelley's Creek. Leonard 
Morris at the mouth of Slaughter's Creek, and John F. Flynn at 
Cabin Creek. In this year John Lybrook. on Sinking Creek, in 
Giles County, was attacked by the Indians and five of his children 
were killed. He secreted himself by hiding in a cave. Wheeling 
was first called Fort Fincastle, afterwards Fort Henry. It was 
planned by George Rogers Clark. On the 11th of September 
Lewis' army of 1,100 soldiers left Lewisburg for Point Pleasant to 
fight that famous battle. Daniel Boone was commander at the 
time of Camp Union (Lewisburg), Donally's Fort and Jarrett's 
Fort. Lewis' army was nineteen days in passing from Lewisburg 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



155 



to Point Pleasant, and that battle was fought on the 10th of Octo- 
ber. 1774-5 — The courts in Augusta County were held alternately 
at Staunton and Pittsburg, which was then situated in a part of 
Augusta County. In 1775 Daniel Boone cut Boone's Trail, or the 
Wilderness Road, from Long Island, in the Holstine country, into 
Kentucky. In 1775 General George Washington and General Lewis 
located and took up 250 acres of land, which included the famous 
Burning Springs in Kanawha County, east of Charleston. In this 
year Rev. Joseph Alderson cut out the first wagon road across the 
mountains as far west as Greenbrier River. In 1776 Augusta was 
divided into three counties — Ohio, Monongalia and Youghiogheny, 
which latter county was abolished, and the entire territory in- 
cluded in the two former. In this year General Andrew Lewis, 
who was in command of the Virginia soldiers, drove Lord Dun- 
more and his fleet and rabble from Gwinn's Island, on the Chesa- 
peake Bay, by reason of which Dunmore left the country forever. 
In 1777 the first forts were established in the Mississippi Valley. 
1777 — Cornstalk, and his son Elinipsico, and Red Hawk, were mur- 
dered at Point Pleasant. In this year the Augusta, Botetourt and 
Greenbrier volunteers under Colonel Skillem marched to Point 
Pleasant to join forces under General Hand, who did not arrive. 
1780 — In an Indian raid into Greenbrier, Donally's Fort was at- 
tacked, but was forewarned by Hammond and Pryor, and rein- 
forced by volunters from Lewisburg under Colonel Stewart. The 
Indians were driven off; and during an Indian raid this year John 
Pryor, the famous scout and brave messenger, was killed. William 
Griffith, his wife and daughter were murdered, and his son, a lad, 
taken prisoner, an account of which is given in this book ; and it 
was the last Indian raid made or murder committed in the Green- 
brier country. This was on the old Ellis place, near the mouth 
of Griffith's Creek. The Indians were followed down the creek 
and on to the Kanawha, and the lad recaptured. A man by the 
name of Carr and two children were murdered near the mouth of 
Bluestone, and a woman at Culbertson's Bottom, all in this county; 
but no details can be secured. 

In 1782 Lewisburg was established as a town. 1784 — Mason 
and Dixon's Line established as the interstate line between Penn- 
sylvania and Virginia. 1786 — The first wagon road, called Koontz's 
New Road, was opened from Lewisburg to the Kanawha River. 
Its route was by Muddy Creek, Keeney's Knob, Rich Creek, Gau- 
ley River, Twenty-Mile, Bell Creek, Campbell's Creek, with side 
trails down Kelley's Creek and Hughes' Creek to Charleston. 1787 



156 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

— Maysville, one time called Limestone, was established as a town 
on the land of John May and Simon Kenton, and organized De- 
cember 11th. This year the State of Virginia ordered the construc- 
tion of a wagon road from Kanawha Falls to Lexington, Kentucky. 
In 1788 the first house was built in Charleston, by George Clen- 
dennin. This year James Rumsey, the real original inventor of the 
steamboat, exhibited his working model to General George Wash- 
ington and others in the waters of the Potomac River, near Berke- 
ley Springs. 1788 — Daniel Boone and Paddy Huddleston caught 
the first beavers in the Kanawha Valley. 1789 — Mad Ann Bailey 
made her solitary ride from Lewisburg to North Clendennin 
(Charleston). 1791 — Daniel Boone was elected as one of the mem- 
bers of the Virginia Legislature from Kanawha County. 1792 — 
Kentucky County was organized as a State and admitted to the 
Union, and was the first child of Virginia, the mother of States, 
and it was the first State admitted into the Union after the original 
thirteen. The Battle of Fallen Timbers was fought by General 
Anthony Wayne, August 20, 1794. It gave peace and security to 
. all of this region. In 1796 Volney, the distinguished French infi- 
del and author, was in this valley. In 1798 Peter Bowyer made 
the first settlement in the New River Gorge, and established a 
Ferry at Sewall, which is known to this day as Bowyer's Ferry. 
The first salt well bored in the Kanawha Valley was in 1808. In 
1810-12, Audubon, the great naturalist, was in the New and Kana- 
wha valleys. The first natural gas well ever bored in America was 
in 1815, in the Kanawha Valley. The last buffalo killed in that 
valley was in that year. Coal was first discovered and used in 
that valley in 1817. The last elk killed in this valley was in 1820. 
The first bridge ever built across New River was at Ingles' Ferry, 
in 1838. The first person to use natural gas as a fuel was William 
Tompkins, in 1841, in the New River Valley. He was the first 
person in America to utilize gas for manufacturing purposes. The 
first cannel coal discovered in America was in the Kanawha Val- 
ley, in 1846. The first railroad across New River was in 1855 — 
the Virginia & Tennessee, now the Norfolk & W estern. The first 
coal works in all this valley were erected in 1855. In 1861 New 
River was higher than ever known, so far as we have any authentic 
history. The Chesapeake & Ohio was opened for traffic in 1873, 
and in this year the Quinnimont Company established the first 
iron furnace and coke works on New River. William Wyant es- 
tablished the first coke works in the Kanawha Valley in 1883. 
The State capital of West Virginia was permanently established 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 157 

at Charleston, and the new capitol building occupied, in 1885. 
Crump's Bottom was settled by Culbertson in 1755, and was the 
first settlement in Summers County. 

In 1763 there were but two settlements in Greenbrier County. 
One was on Muddy Creek, the other in the Big Levels, and the 
two together only contained about twenty families, of one hundred 
souls. The Muddy Creek settlement was visited by about sixty 
Indians under Cornstalk, the distinguished chief, and probably the 
greatest of his race. They pretended to be friendly, and there be- 
* ing no war between the Indians, French and the English, the set- 
tlers took it for granted that they were kindly disposed. Having 
thus deceived the settlers, they fell upon the whites and v killed 
every man, and killed or made prisoners of every woman and child. 
They then hurried on to the Big Levels, which was about fifteen 
miles distant, and there resorted to the same treacherous and in- 
famous tactics. Archibald Clendennin had just returned from a 
hunt, bringing three elks, from which they had a great feast. Im- 
mediately after, at a signal given by the Indians, the whites were 
thus, within a few hours, in two entire prosperous settlements, ex- 
terminated. Conrad Yokum — the name now being Holcomb — out 
of the one hundred persons in both settlements, escaped death. 
He escaped by flight. Mrs. Clendennin also escaped from captiv- 
ity. A negro woman was endeavoring to escape from Clendennin, 
and was followed by her child, crying. To enable herself to make 
better progress, she stopped and instantly killed her own child. 
Mrs. Clendennin was a brave woman. She denounced the Indians, 
which so enraged them that they slapped her in the face with the 
fresh scalp from her husband's head. They then undertook to in- 
timidate her by raising a tomahawk over her head, but she refused 
to be silenced. These Indians passed over Keeney's Knob on their 
retreat, and it was while making this passage that she passed her 
child to another woman to hold, and she slipped into the brush and 
made her escape, returning to her home, where she remained all 
night, as detailed in another section ; and it was on Keeney's Knob, 
when the Indians discovered her absence, one of them took her 
child, and said he would bring the cow to its calf. Taking it by 
the heels, he beat its brains out against a tree. Mrs. Clendennin 
finally, after great dangers and privations, and after she had re- 



NOTE. — I am indebted to "Hale's Trans-Allegheny Pioneers" 
for many of the chronological items hereinbefore given, and I have 
liberally referred to that interesting book. 



158 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



turned to her old home, covered the body of her dead husband with 
brush, weeds and fence-rails to protect it from wild beasts, and 
made her flight, crossing" the Allegheny Mountains, and reached 
the Jackson's River settlement in safely. 

Hinton, within nine months, from a single log hut, increased 
in population 300 souls. It was on January 15, 1874, that C. L. 
Thompson said in the "Mountain Herald" : "If we would have a 
big city, we must have factories. It is an age of development. Let 
us not stand gazing idly about, but be up and doing. Manufactories 
will only go up under the fostering care and intelligence of our 
enterprising people." What was true then is still true. We now 
have a population of 6,000 souls. 

It was on the 16th of January, 1874, that Dr. Thrasher gave the 
Hon. Elbert Fowler the lie, and Fowler then struck him in the face 
with a large law book, during the trial of a case in court. Bystand- 
ers intervened and prevented a rough time. Affairs seemed to have 
quieted down, but at nine o'clock the same evening, at the Wickem 
House, Fowler was again attacked by Thrasher, who drew a pistol, 
when Fowler struck him, and the fight ensued. Thrasher shot 
"Fowler in the arm, the bullet lodging in the lining of his coat just 
over the left breast. They were then .separated. Thrasher after- 
wards died, supposed from poison taken from his own hand, at his 
home near Red Sulphur Springs. 

It was on the 20th of January, 1874, that the famous fist fight 
occurred between John A. Richmond and Thomas Bragg at New 
Richmond. They fell out over some trespassing hogs. They were 
two of the most powerful men, physically, in Summers County. 
After fighting for some time, Richmond got Bragg down, and made 
him holler "Enough." Richmond was a merchant at the mouth 
of Lick Creek; Bragg was a farmer residing on the Hump Moun- 
tain, afterwards removing to the West. After the fight was over, 
as was the fashion in those days, they shook hands and made 
friends, and remained so ever afterwards. 

In 1874, a company, composed of General J. D. Bernard, General 
Q. A. Gilmore, Colonel William P. Craighill and Benjamine La- 
trobe, were appointed by the Secretary of War to report upon the 
practicability and commercial value of a continued water line from 
the Ohio River to the Chesapeake Bay, known as the James River 
and Kanawha Canal. They were to report in March. It was in 
contemplation to construct a tunnel eight miles long through the 
Allegheny Mountains, with locks 120 feet in length, 20 feet wide and 
7 feet deep. The terminus at that time of the James River Canal was 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 159 



Buchannon. The project was to continue from Buchannon west, 
passing through the Allegheny Mountains by an eight-mile tunnel ; 
thence Avestward by slack water and sluice dams navigation, by 
way of Greenbrier River and Kanawha River to the Ohio. This 
connection between the waters of the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf 
of Mexico had been projected for a generation before, and this last 
action was the last ever taken, as the construction of the Chesa- 
peake & Ohio Railroad destroyed the James River Canal, and any 
possibility of navigation between those waters was destroyed for- 
ever. At one time it was proposed to run this canal from Alderson 
through Keeney's Knobs by tunnel by Lick Creek to New River, 
and the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company projected its route 
over the same course and made its survey, but abandoned it as 
impractical for the route now being occupied by that great railroad. 
This canal project connecting the James and Kanawha Rivers had 
been agitated for forty years. 

We had, back in 1874 poetical genius within our borders, as is 
in evidence from a stanza taken from a poem by a Pipestem poet, 
who is supposed to be Mr. Gorden C. Hughes, now of Arkansas, 
which is as follows : 

"Our constable, Mr. Wood, 
Is seemingly very good ; 
He attends to monthly rules 
With a handsome roll of schedules." 

John G. Crockett was appointed postmaster at Indian Mills and 
James Keatly removed February 26, 1874. 

The first large milling company in Hinton was begun on Feb- 
ruary 26, 1876, by E. A. W r eeks. This mill was located on a point 
by the present light plant, and was destroyed by the flood of 1878. 

The first Sunday-school ever established in Hinton was through 
the efforts of Rev. W. M. Hiner, of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South, in February, 1874. The committee secured to organize it 
was C. L. Thompson, W. W. Adams, J. H. Pack, E. A. Weeks 
and W. W. Baker. 

The voting precinct at Pisgah, on top of the Big Ben Tunnel, 
was removed to Talcott Station at the March Term of court, 1874. 
Mercer Salt Works was established as a voting precinct also at 
the March Term of court, 1874. 

Gas was discovered at the place of Robert Gore, on Island Creek, 
sixteen miles south of Hinton, in 1874. 

It was in 1874 that Austin Cummings, the famous horse-thief, 



160 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



secured his release from the penitentiary of this State. This release 
was secured by Cummings forging a very large petition of the 
citizens of Summers County to the Governor. It had also 
attached a recommendation of the prosecuting attorney, the trial 
judge and other officials. It was a forgery throughout, made by 
Cummings in the penitentiary, sent to the Governor, Hon. Henry 
Mason Mathews, who, acting thereon in good faith, issued his 
pardon and set Cummings at. liberty before the deception was dis- 
covered. Cummings made his .escape, and was never afterwards- 
apprehended. He was serving a term in the penitentiary for horse 
stealing, a crime then very common in this country in those days, 
and was sentenced from this county. 

The railroad switch in Avis at the light plant was first built in 
1874. In April, 1874, butter at Hinton was quoted at thirty cents 
per pound. 

There were twenty-five indictments on the court docket for 
1874. It was at a term of this court that the famous certificate was 
filed on presentation of a petition of a gentleman desiring to be 
removed from road labor service, as follows : 

"Raleigh Court House, March 20, 1874. 

"This is to sertify that i examnd , and find a 

rupetur jist above the umblicus rending him holy un fit manuell 
labor 

"Giving under my hand the dait above riten. 

"(Signed), , M. D." 

In 1874 the colored folks of Hinton were entering theatrical 
enterprises. They gave their first performance at the Thespian 
Hall. The play selected was "Richard III." All seemed to go 
pretty well until the shooting business came around. The pistol 
furnished was, of course, only to have a cap on it. When the ex- 
plosion took place, Duke Buckingham going "incontinently" from 
the stage, said he "didn't cum thar fur no sich foolishness." The pis- 
tol happened to be loaded with a paper wad, which struck him 
pretty hard in the "bread basket," and the play was thus aban- 
doned ; and from that day to this the great plays of Shakespeare 
have been neglected by the colored population of this county. 

The court dockets of the 12th of May, 1874, showed twelve state 
cases, fifteen motions and appeals, four cases at issue, thirteen 
writs of enquiry, three office judgments; and only two indictments 
were found at that time by the grand jury. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



161 



The first action towards securing a school house for Hinton 
was on the 19th of May, 1874, at a meeting of the citizens, when 
C. L. Thompson, W. B. Tallioferrio and C. A. Fredeking were ap- 
pointed a committee to prepare plans. 

It was at the May term of the county court, 1874, that Avis 
Hinton tendered and the court accepted a lot for the court house 
of one acre of land on the island, where the Ewart residence was 
afterwards constructed by Dr. Gooch. M. Gwinn, A. L. Harvey 
and C. R. Hines voted for that location. Manser and Robt. Gore 
opposed the location. 

In 1874 the pin factory was established at New Richmond, which 
was operated for some time ; and an iron furnace was also pro- 
posed to be established at the same place. This furnace was after- 
wards built at Quinnimont. Xew Richmond in those days threat- 
ened to' rival Hinton. 

The burning springs, on Madam's Creek, two miles from Hin- 
ton. were attracting attention in 1874. These springs at one time 
were owned by the famous Evan Hinton. A large quantity of 
gas was escaping, which would ignite and burn when a match was 
lighted and placed in contact. At that time it was claimed that 
these springs produced a sufficient supply to provide for a large 
town. The water in the spring looked then like that of the Green- 
brier White Sulphur Springs, but there was no sulphur in it. 
From that day to this, this spring, as well as the one on Beech 
Run, have attracted attention ; but nothing practical has ever come 
of it. The Madam's Creek Spring is now the property of Dr. J. 
F. Bigony. A company was formed in 1906 to develop the oil and 
gas territory around Hinton, with Jas. H. Miller as president; 
but nothing has come of it, as the land-owners declined to lease 
their property. 

The New River Railroad and Manufacturing Company was or- 
ganized at Pearisburg on June 4, 1874, by Elbert Fowler, J. D. 
Sergent, who was president ; Gen. C. C. Whorten, Henry Beckwith, 
John T. Corwin and Jed Hotchkiss. This railroad company was 
afterwards, by an Act of the Legislature, consolidated with the 
Norfolk & Western, and the rights of way secured by it are still 
held by that company. It was projected to run from Hinton to 
the mouth of East River. After several years it was taken over 
by the N. & W. R. R. Co., which still owns its rights of way. 

The Presbyterian Church was organized in June, 1874, by Dr. 
J. C. Bar, of Charleston. Hiram Scott, E. A. Weeks and C. A. 
Fredeking were made the ruling elders. 



162 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The "Mountain Herald" newspaper began the agitation for the 
High School in Hinton as early as 1875, and the Stonewall High 
School was then established by Prof. John I. Harvey, a son-in- 
law of Major B. S. Thompson, a distinguished educator, prepared 
for school work in Germany and the United States. Major Thomp- 
son operated the boarding department. This school, however, was 
not successful, and was finally abandoned, Professor Harvey going 
to the University of West Virginia, where he remained for many 
years. 

The ferry at Lower Hinton was established in 1875, by Evan 
Hinton. He had quite a celebrated fight over its establishment, 
as there was a ferry at Upper Hinton, about a half-mile above. 
One side of this Lower Hinton ferry was in Raleigh County and 
the other in Summers. It continued in active operation until the 
fall of 1906, when the Hinton bridge across New River was built 
and practically destroyed the ferry, which is now owned by Martin 
Nee, of Raleigh County, and H. Ewart, of Summers. 

The personal property assessment in 1875 amounted to $203,- 
526: In Greenbrier District, $69,217; in Green Sulphur District, 
$36,693; in Pipestem District, $37,380; Jumping Branch District, 
%32,732\ Forest Hill District, $27,532. There were in the county in 
that year assessed 134 horses, 240 wagons, 3,202 cattle, 3,816 sheep 
and 640 hogs. 

The original court house cost $10,500, according to contract, all 
of which was paid in 1875 before a lick was struck or a brick burned. 

S. W. Willy, who reassessed the lands for 1875, received for the 
services $250. 

Rev. Rufus Pack, in 1875, had a vineyard of two acres growing 
on his farm on New River, below the mouth of Bluestone, now 
owned by A. E. and C. L. Miller. 

In 1874 a petition was circulated asking the Chesapeake & Ohio 
Railroad Company to resume the running of mail trains to Hinton. 
It was claimed that it did not pay at that time, but that it would 
eventually pay by gradual increase, and thereby build up the trade 
of the road. 

The real estate assessment for 1875 was the first made after 
the formation of the county, and was as follows : Greenbrier Dis- 
trict, $233,277.36>4 ; Green Sulphur District, $97,905.33^; Jump- 
ing Branch District, $77,260.35; Forest Hill District, $92,838.20; 
Pipestem District, $98,138.50; total, $599,409.75. The total assess- 
ment prior to this reassessment was $549,806, the increase made by 
Mr. Willy being $49,603.75. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 163 



At the October election, 1874, Robert Gore was elected presiding 
justice, which created a vacancy in the office of justice of the 
peace, and the people voted for and elected Gordon L. Jordan to 
fill the vacancy. 



Election of 1876 for Governor: 

Mathews (Dem.) Golf (Rep.) 

Greenbrier District 299 240 

Pipestem District 150 39 

Forest Hill District 160 25 

Green Sulphur District 159 69 

Jumping Branch District 158 63 

Total 926 436 



W. W. Adams for State Senate received 768 votes ; William 
Prince, 501 votes. Dr. B. P. Gooch (D.), for Legislature, 594 votes; 
Jonathan Lilly (R.)> 576 votes; Lewis S. Shanklin (I.), 133 votes. 
Elbert Fowler, for prosecuting attorney, 888 votes; W. G. Ryan, 
360 votes. For president of the county 'court, M. C. Barker, 904; 

■ Mann, 224; William Hutchison, 166. For sheriff, William 

S. Lilly ("Shoemaker Bill"), 618; S. W. Willy, 517; James H. 
Bledsoe, 163. For assessor, Charles Clark, 189; John Lilly (Item), 
219; John Edds, 25; William Houchins, 126; A. P. Pence, 70; 

James K. Scott, 46; A. A. Allen, 168; P. M. Grimmett, 163; 

Farley, 83; Joseph Ellis, 90; Caleb Noel, 62. 

The Baptist Church in Hinton was completed November 2, 
1876. The cupola was covered with tin by O. P. Hoover, the father 
of Thomas Hoover. 

The powder mill at New Richmond was built in 1876. 

In 1875 the walnut timber from Lick Creek, in Green Sulphur 
District, was being shipped out by Sam Smith, who sent it direct to 
England. That country was very heavily timbered with this valu- 
able timber, but the owners of it received but very little benefit, 
Smith "beating" them out of the value by failing to pay. This 
timber was so plentiful in that region in those days that fencing 
was made largely of walnut trees. 

At the school election, in 1875, F. W. Mahood, A. P. Pence 
and M. A. Manning were elected as the Board of Education of 
Greenbrier District, which at that time included Talcott District. 

The round house in Hinton was built in 1875, by G. W. Gleason. 

In 1875 a railroad was surveyed up Madam's Creek, by Captain 



164 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



B. R. Dunn to Evan Hinton's coal bank. The average grade was 
2\jy 2 feet to the field, making a grade line 4 12-100 feet per hundred 
feet, being 1 18-100 feet less per hundred feet than at Hawk's Nest 
short line. This reached coal in three and a half miles from Hin- 
ton, starting at the mouth of Madam's Creek, and is 1,400 feet, at 
that point, above sea level. Here they ran up the creek three- 
fourths of a mile, thence up White Oak Branch. This coal bank 
of Evan Hinton's was on a 1,500-acre tract of land, and has been 
talked about from that day to this. Evan Hinton worked hard to 
have it developed in his lifetime. The land now belongs to Joseph 
Hinton, Silas Hinton's heirs and William Hinton, Jr. 

Fireman Roadcap was killed at Big Ben Tunnel, by a freight 
train running into a mass of debris, which came down from the 
roof, burying Engineer Wilkinson and Fireman Roadcap. The lat- 
ter was sitting up in his box when found at daylight, stone dead, 
and Wilkinson was badly hurt. This was Alex. Wilkinson, who 
continued an engineer on the road until 1905, when he was acci- 
dentally killed in the yard at Hinton. He was the father of Pres- 
- ton Wilkinson, the energetic young business man of Hinton, and 
one of the managers of the Hinton foundry, machine and plumbing 
establishment. 

The first census of Hinton was made in August, 1875, by Thomas 
Cooper, with the view to the incorporation of the town. It was 
then two years old, and the enumeration showed a population of 
six hundred. 

It was on September 1, 1875, that L. C. Thrasher was murdered 
by Woodson Harvey. Thrasher was shot and instantly killed by 
Harvey, who was tried afterwards and ^sentenced to the peniten- 
tiary for a few years. 

C. L. Ellison was elected superintendent of schools in 1875, by 
a majority of 418, over Dr. William H. Tally. 

The Board of Education for Forest Hill District, 1875, was: 
Elbert Fowler, president; J. N. Haynes and L. G. Lowe, commis- 
sioners. The two latter gentlemen still reside in the county. 

The enumeration of youths for 1875 showed : For Greenbrier 
District, 707; Green Sulphur District, 433; Forest Hill District, 
345; Pipestem District, 361; Jumping Branch District, 408; total, 
2,254, of which 176 were colored. 

The stock pens were constructed in 1875 at Pence's Springs 
Station, which was then known as Stock Yards, and for twenty 
odd years afterwards. In 1900 they were removed to Hinton. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 



165 



The circuit court dockets for Summers County in 1875 showed 
twelve misdemeanors and one felony. 

It was on September 23, 1875, that J. Wash. Jones, the mer- 
chant at Talcott, a brother of W. W. Jones, was killed, accidentally 
shooting himself. 

In 1875 Wm. Gayer, a railroad man, was accidentally killed in 
the yards at Hinton. His family still reside at, and are prominent 
in Hinton, consisting of Mrs. Jas. F. Smith, Mrs. Minnie Bruce, 
John Gayer, and Mrs. Nannie Shifflet. 

The county examiners of teachers in 1875 were W. W. Adams 
and J. M. Carden. 

It was in 1875 the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad was sold under 
foreclosure of mortgage in Richmond and Parkersburg simulta- 
neously, and taken over by the C. & O. Railway Co. 

On October 18, 1875, a large deer was killed in the river at Hin- 
ton by Joseph Hinton and William Wimmer. 

In 1875 the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad was paying its em- 
ployes in scrip. It was below par. 

C. L. Miller quit the county clerk's office as deputy for E. H. 
Peck, on November 5, 1875. 

The last wolves killed in Summers County was on the 8th of 
November, 1875, by Elias Wheeler, on Keeney's Knob. M. N, 
Brean saw two large wolves in the woods in that year, but they 
were never known to have been killed. 

Dr. John G. Manser was a Centennial Commissioner for the 
Exposition at Yorktown, in 1876. 

Rev. Cobbs was the Episcopal minister in 1876. 

Captain William McClandish was the first master machinist at 
the round house. 

Robert Gore died in April, 1876. He was then president of the 
county court ; and "the bravest of the brave" in the Civil War, on 
either side. His son, C. W. Gore, now lives at Athens, W. Va. 

Major Cyrus Newlyn died on the 20th of April, 1876, at the 
Wickham House. He was a New Yorker, then residing at Union, 
and came to Hinton to attend court, and died very suddenly. He 
was buried in the old cemetery, but there is no mark to indicate 
his last resting-place. He was a brilliant lawyer. He came from 
the North in Reconstruction days to practice his profession at a 
time when the lawyer in this region of the South could not prac- 
tice by reason of the test oaths. 

In 1876 a poplar tree was cut on New River which manufactured 



166 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

4,150 feet of lumber. This is a sample of the character of timber 
that grows in this region. This lumber was clear and sound. 

Henry Milburn was elected president of the county court in 
May, 1876, to take the place of Robert Gore, deceased. . 

Wellington Cox, the first assessor of the county, died in 1876, 
and (Item) John Lilly was appointed in his place. 

M. C. Barker raised 700 bushels of wheat on his New River 
farm in 1876. 

In 1877 there located in the town of Hinton, for the practice 
of law, an Englishman by the name of A. Neville C. Leveson- 
Gower. He executed bonds as notary public, with E. H. Peck, W. 
W. Adams, N. M. Lowry, B. L. Hogue and W. R. Thompson as 
security. He cut a great figure, having come with a flourish of 
trumpets, claiming to be a counsellor from the courts of London, 
but proved to be a complete fake. He afterwards vanished from 
off the face of the earth, leaving the people of Hinton none the 
better for his having located among them. 

D. G. Lilly was the oldest son of R. C. ("Miller Bob") Lilly, 
. and a brother of Hon. A. A. Lilly, now practicing law at Beckley, 
and the prosecuting attorney of that county. D. G. Lilly was 
elected county superintendent of free schools, August 7, 1877, and 
was re-elected, holding the office for two terms. He at one time 
owned the fine Lilly farm on the Bluestone River, now owned by 
his brother, John A. Lilly. Later he removed to Bluefield, and is 
now a resident of that town, engaged in the mercantile business. 
At one time he was the deputy sheriff of Mercer County, and was 
a prominent citizen. 

I. G. Carden was appointed notary public May 15, 1877, which 
office he holds to this day. 

R. C. Lilly was overseer of the poor under contract in 1877, 
and received $950 for maintaining the paupers in the county. 

Patrick Nowland, a brother of Joseph Nowland and a great 
grandson of James Graham, was drowned in the Greenbrier River, 
at Haynes' Ferry, in the fall of 1878. He had been at Alderson, and 
was returning to his home near Clayton, and undertook to ford 
Greenbrier River, which was too full for fording at that time, and 
he was carried down by the rapid current. The mule which he was 
riding escaped by swimming to the shore. 

About the same time Jack Garten, a son of Charles Garten, of 
Forest Hill District, was drowned at the mouth of Greenbrier. He 
had been at Hinton, and undertook to ford Greenbrier; but being 
under the influence of whisky, missed the ford by going up above 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 167 

same, just under the shoals. Out of this drowning grew the famous 
suit of Charles Garten, plaintiff, against Dunn & Goldsmith, which 
firm was composed of Luther Dunn and a little Jew, by the name 
of Goldsmith, who were then engaged in the saloon business in 
Upper Hinton. They sold Garten the liquor which intoxicated 
him, and it was in that condition that he undertook to ford Green- 
brier River and was drowned. His father, Charles Garten, sued 
these saloon people for damages ; but the suit never came to trial, 
as the firm of Dunn & Goldsmith failed, and the recovery would 
have been worthless. The suit attracted wide attention at that 
time, and was the first, and possibly the only suit ever prosecuted 
for anything of that character until the last six months prior hereto, 
when Mrs. W. E. Gwinn brought action for the sale of liquor to 
her son, a minor under twenty-one years of age, against practically 
all the saloon people of Hinton, which suits are set for trial at the 
time of this writing. March, 1907. 

John B. Garvey was appointed notary public. March 18. 1878, 
which position he still holds. Gordon L. Jordan was appointed 
notary public May 21, 1878. D. G. Lilly kept the paupers of the 
county for $619, for the year 1878. 

C. H. Payne, the noted colored Baptist preacher, politician and 
lawyer, was granted license to perform the rites of matrimony, 
July 16, 1878. He was a native of Summers County, having been 
reared on the Wilson Sweeney place, on Xew River, at Crump's 
Bottom. He is one of the most celebrated colored citizens in the 
United States. He is a Doctor of Divinity in the Colored Mission- 
ary Baptist ministry, and licensed to practice law. and now holds an 
appointment as a foreign minister under the administration of 
President Roosevelt, in Liberia, having been formerly appointed 
by President McKinley. He returns to this country and addresses 
the colored population at each election. He is a forceful speaker, 
and has great influence with the colored population, they usually 
following his advice in all elections and voting the Republican 
ticket. 

B. L. Hogue was first elected clerk of the county court on the 
8th of October, 1878, taking office January 1, 1879. He succeeded 
Allen H. Meador, the first clerk, having been deputy under Mr. 
Meador. 

Harrison Gwinn was appointed notary public November 18, 
1878, which office he holds to this day. J. K. Scott, of Hungart's 
Creek, was appointed notary public September 17, 1878. which 
office he held until his death. 



168 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



John Prichard, one of the first citizens of Hinton, along with 
George Anderson, came to this city with the coming of the rail- 
road. They were both old Confederate soldiers, having fought 
throughout the Civil War. They were both killed by the trains of 
the railroad, for which they had worked faithfully for many years. 

E. H. Peck was appointed notary public March 16, 1880. 

W. C. Dobins was elected assessor at the October election, 
1880, and held the office for four years, having defeated Walter H. 
Boude, who afterwards held the office for eight years. Mr. Dobins, 
at the time of his election, was a Primitive Baptist preacher, nicknamed 
the "Hardshells." He still resides in Summers County, and 
is now a minister in the Missionary Baptist Church. At the time 
of his election he was an Independent in politics, but has since 
identified himself with the Republican party. 

In 1888 he was a candidate and a Republican nominee for the 
Legislature; Hon. John W. Johnson was the Democratic nominee. 
The county went Democratic, and of course Mr. Dobins was de- 
feated. He resides in Jumping Branch District. He has a number 
of sons, all of whom are among the good citizens of the county. 

J. D. K. Foster was elected constable of Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict at the election in October, 1880. W. R. Taylor, at the same 
election, was elected justice of the peace for that district as a Re- 
publican ; Griffith Meadows, of Talcott District, with J. H. Ballen- 
ger, constable, as Democrats. J. E. Meadows was at that election — 
October 12, 1880 — elected justice of the peace of Greenbrier Dis- 
trict as a Republican; Wm. Hughes and A. G. Austin, for Pipe- 
stem District, and M. Gwinn, for Green Sulphur, as Democrats; 
L. M. Dunn, for Greenbrier, also as a Republican. 

James H. Miller was qualified as superintendent of free schools, 
June 4, 1881, term beginning September 1st, as a Democrat. 

E. C. Flint was appointed justice of the peace for Talcott Dis- 
trict on May 13, 1881. L. G. Lowe was appointed justice of the 
peace for Forest Hill District May 12, 1881. W. H. Manser was 
appointed constable for Greenbrier District May 13, 1881. E. L. 
Dunn was appointed justice of the peace for Forest Hill District 
May 13, 1881. Dr. J. G. Manser was appointed notary public Sep- 
tember 1, 1881. Dr. W. H. Bray was appointed justice of the 
peace December 31, 1881. James H. Crawford was appointed con- 
stable for Greenbrier District January 17, 1882. 

The number of free schools taught in Summers County in 1876 
was 66. The number of pupils attending free schools for that year 
was 1,583; average daily attendance, 1,130. The total funds for all 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 169 

school purposes for the county for that year was $7,698.28. The 
total value of all school property for that year was $10,058.50. 

The water gauge was placed in New River at the lower ferry 
at Hinton in January, 1877, by which the Government is enabled 
to correctly ascertain the rise and fall of the river for each day in 
the year. A. G. Flannagan was the first operator, and has contin- 
ued from that date to the present, representing the Government as 
the agent for the Weather Bureau in connection therewith. Mr. 
Flannagan is the oldest United States Government employe, in 
point of time, within the county. The winter of 1876 was one of the 
coldest remembered. When the ice went out of New River, Jerry 
Meadows picked up below Hinton forty-three fine catfish, which 
he disposed of in town. 

It was in 1876 or 1877 that the celebrated purchase of the old 
"Neeley" grist mill, on Bluestone, was made of W. B. Crump, by 
B. F. H. Sheppard, who was afterwards convicted and sent to the 
penitentiary. He used in the transaction notes forged for the pur- 
pose, for which he was convicted, having forged the name of Wil- 
liam Campbell, of Franklin County, Va. He transferred these 
notes to William B. Crump in payment for this valuable mill prop- 
erty, and took deed for the property. The notes came due, his 
forgery was detected, and his conviction followed. 

The first attempt made for the benefit of theater-goers in the 
county was by local playwrights, when the Thespian Society was 
organized on the 15th of February, 1877. A large frame hall was 
erected on the corner opposite the hospital of Dr. J. F. Bigony, 
in Middle Hinton. It was one story, with a stage, gallery, and ar- 
ranged as an opera house. Charles Fredeking was the chief pro- 
moter, painted the scenery, and had charge. The actors were local, 
and quite a number of entertainments gotten off. As a financial 
proposition it was a failure; and after a few years of intermittent 
life it was abandoned, and the promoters were financial losers. 

The first sailing craft on New River was constructed at Hin- 
ton by Captain Frank Dennis, and named by him the "Black 
Hawk." It plied around in the basin at Upper Hinton. It was 
quit a novelty and curiosity in those days. Captain Dennis was a 
remarkable and eccentric gentleman. He was a brother of United 
States Senator George Dennis, of Maryland, and adopted the sail- 
or's occupation in his boyhood, and had made his tracks in every 
country on the face of the globe. He was a man of considerable 
means, and bought out the Manser property at the mouth of the 
Greenbrier, which he afterwards sold to A. E., C. L. and J. H. 



170 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Miller. He purchased a lot on the bank of New River, at Upper 
Hinton, and constructed thereon the most substantial dwelling 
ever erected in the county. To protect it from the floods of the 
New and Greenbrier rivers, he erected three large dressed stone 
chimneys, and tied the hewed logs of the walls together by iron 
rods running from cellar to garret. When the tremendous flood of 
1878 came, it made no impression on this building, although the 
water was about half way to the ceiling on the first floor, and the 
"ell" from the house of Silas Hinton washed down and lodged 
against it. Captain Dennis was a rover and a sailor, and later sold 
out all of his properties, married in his old age, and moved on 
westward. 

It was in 1877 the excitement ran high over the controverted 
election of General R. B. Hayes over Governor S. J. Tilden for 
President, and Preacher Andy Bennett, in his enthusiasm and pa- 
triotic Democracy, enlisted a company of 100 men, as he claimed, 
and favored moving on to Washington to seat his candidate, Til- 
den. Of course, Andy was dissuaded from his enthusiastic enter- 
prise. 

The court docket in 1877 represented 48 law cases and 50 chan- 
cery suits. 

In the summer of this year W. L. Ellison killed a rattlesnake, 
the largest reported in the county, which was four and one-half feet 
long, eight inches in circumference, with eighteen rattlers. On 
July 5, 1877, H. H. Martin, of Pipestem, killed a hawk which 
measured five feet from tip to tip. 

The Missionary Baptist Church of Hinton was dedicated Jiily 
15, 1877, by Dr. Dickinson and Dr. Curry, of Richmond. Over 
$500 w r as raised on the day of dedication towards defraying the 
cost of the building. 

It was in the year 1877 that Greenbrier District was divided 
and Talcott District formed. The name of Tilden was first pro- 
posed, but this was finally dropped and Talcott adopted, the name 
being for Captain Talcott, a civil engineer, who had charge of the 
construction of the Big Bend Tunnel. 

WM. CRUMP DIED. 

Major Wm. Crump, the owner of Crump's Bottom, died March 
6, 1877. He was a native of Virginia, born September 11, 1793, 
married Miss Gillie Law in 1816, and removed to Summers County, 
in that part then Mercer, in 1855. He purchased the famous 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 171 



Crump's Bottom, on New River, opposite the mouth of Indian, 
which was first known as Culbertson's Bottom, then Reed's Bot- 
tom, then Crump's Bottom, and is now partly owned by Geo. W. 
Harmon and by the heirs of John T. Shumate, deceased. This 
magnificent plantation is the finest estate in the county. It is six 
miles long. The large brick residence was constructed by Major 
Crump many years ago, on an eminence in the bend of the New 
River, overlooking same. Major Crump was a Primitive Baptist in 
religious matters, having connected himself with that church in 
1805. He was a gentleman by birth and a nobleman by nature. 
So genial was his nature and so generous his hospitality that 
neither in peace nor in war was a stranger turned hungry from his 
door. He belonged to that old class of plain Virginia gentleman 
rapidly passing away, and no doubt in a few years will be known 
only in legendary history of the land. He was succeeded by his 
son, William B. Crump, who died some twenty years ago, having 
divided his estate between his daughters and their husbands, Col. 
John G. Crockett and his wife Ella, and W. C. Crockett and his 
wife Mary, who resided on the plantation for a number of years, 
and from them the title and possession passed to the present own- 
ers. Col. John G. Crockett was a Virginia gentleman of generous 
impulses. He represented the county in the Legislature two terms. 
Wm. C. Crockett later became a preacher in the M. E. Church 
South. He is a warm-hearted Christian gentleman, and now resides 
in Southwest Virginia. Col. John G. Crockett, who was an afficer 
in the Confederate Army during the war, died in California in 1906. 

It was in 1877 the vote was taken throughout the State on the 
permanent location of the capital. In this county Charleston re- 
ceived 1,410 votes; Clarksburg, 3; Martinsburg, 1. This vote was 
taken at the school election. The candidates for county superintend- 
ent were D. G. Lilly, who received 515 votes; Charles L. Ellison, 
who received 318 votes; Rufus Deeds, 481 votes; Rev. H. C. Tins- 
ley, 6 votes. No political nominations were made. This election 
was held August 18, 1877. 

The first first-class hotel of any consequence opened in Hinton 
was the Hotchkiss House, erected and conducted by John M. Car- 
den, the present efficient assistant deputy clerk of the county court. 
The building is still standing, opposite the court house, and is now 
occupied by Mr. Carden as a private residence. It was opened as a 
hotel August 23, 1877. It was named for Jed. Hotchkiss, the cele- 
brated promoter, soldier and civil engineer. 

It was on the 20th of July, 1877, that Captain Dolittle, the Dep- 



172 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



uty United States Marshal, was shot in Jumping Branch District, 
on the Giles and Fayette turnpike. He was shot in the leg and arm 
by moonshiners, while making a raid on these alleged violators of 
the internal revenue laws, which were claimed to infest the west 
side of New River in those days. The shooting caused a great 
furor through the press at that time, and much criticism was 
brought out for and against the action of the Government officials. 

The number of children enumerated, that were entitled to at- 
tend the free schools in the county this year, was 2,357. 

It was in 1877 that the Hereford Guards, the first military or- 
ganization in the county, was organized. It was a fine company 
of men, not connected, however, with the army of the Republic, 
but was a State organization. The election of officers took place on 
August 30. N. M. Lowry was elected captain ; L. M. Dunn, first 
lieutenant; W. H. Thompson, second lieutenant; R. A. McGinnity, 
first sergeant; W. C. Ridgeway, second sergeant; B. L. Hoge, third 
sergeant; Jas. H. Hobbs, fourth sergeant; M. M. Breen, first cor- 
poral ; W. H. Pemberton, second corporal. 

In those days squirrel hunts were a favorite pastime. One was 
held at Shumate's, in Pipestem, at which 115 were killed with 
rifles. 

In 1877, 110 freight cars were shipped out from the yards per 
week, which was considered a large business. 

The county levy for 1877 was 85 cents, and an additional levy 
of ten cents to pay on old drafts. 

At the September term of the court in 1877, Ed. Kelley, the 
afterwards famous old darkey of Scrapper's Corners, was sentenced 
to the penitentiary for eighteen months for assault at the round 
house ; and James Fisher, of Forest Hill District, sentenced to five 
years for horse-stealing. 

It was in October of this year that M. Bibb was called to the 
pastorate of the First Baptist Church, which continued until he 
resigned on account of ill health. 

John McGee, the present chief of police of the city of Hinton, 
with his father, O. McGee, were the first butchers who ever estab- 
lished the butcher business in Summers County. Their slaughter- 
pens were near the present residence of A. G. Fredeking, in the 
lower part of Hinton. They were from Spottsylvania, Virginia. 

The county levy for 1877 amounted to $7,952.19. The amount 
expended during that year was $6,706.50. 

On October 11, 1877, W. A. Ouarrier, then fish commissioner, 
placed 5,000 black bass in Greenbrier River at Caldwell. This was 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



173 



the first stock of these fish placed in that river, which was done 
at the request of Major John W. Harris. 

The first photograph gallery that was established in the county 
was in October, 1877, by F. M. Starbuck, in Avis. 

The first drug store ever established in the county was at New 
Richmond, by Dr. Samuel Williams and Dr. N. W. Noel, during the 
construction of the C. & O. Railway, in 1872. The first drug store 
established in Hinton was by Dr. Patterson, on the corner of Third 
and Summers Streets, in the present Peck Building. 

The volume of business done at Talcott Station, shown by C. 
E. Lacy, the first agent at that place, in 1877, showed: Tobacco, 
210,322 pounds; other freight, 1,558,312 pounds. The freight at 
Lowell in 1877 was 2,625 cattle, 815 hogs, 2,375 sheep, 10,400 pounds 
of tobacco. It was then only a flag station. The famous Tom 
Quinn had some time before this established, during 1877 and 1878, 
and was operating, his fleet of batteaux boats on New River, from 
Shanklin's Ferry to Hinton. His wharf was at L^pper Hinton, and 
the freight carried consisted largely of tobacco, farm products and 
lumber, tobacco largely predominating. Pipestem and Forest Hill, 
in those days, were large tobacco producing districts, an industry 
which has long since been entirely suspended. 

The freight shipped from New Richmond depot in 1877 amount- 
ed to 4,010,307 pounds. The West Virginia powder mills were 
completed at New Richmond in 1877, and the manufactured prod- 
uct amounted to 600 pounds per day. The falls of Lick Creek, 
one-half mile above its mouth, were utilized for water power. A 
substantial dam was constructed on top of these falls. The powder 
factory was built about three hundred yards below, and the water 
conveyed by a race thereto. The building was a two-story frame, 
with a large overshot water-wheel. The company was organized 
by Eastern capitalists, General Williams and Jos. L. Beury, the 
celebrated coal operator of Fayette, being interested ; but the con- 
cern was not substantially backed financially, and was later aban- 
doned. Finally the plant was burned by incendiaries, and the dam 
went to destruction from the elements. Before its destruction, 
however, it went into the hands of a receiver, and was sold under 
the hammer. 

In April, 1878, Captain N. M. Lowery placed another supply of 
black bass at Wiggins, four miles from its mouth. 

Captain Orberson was also operating a fleet of boats up and 
down New River, consisting of the Black Swan, Lilly Dale, Black 
Maria and Wild Goose. 



174 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Barger's Springs Postoffice was established in May, 1878, with 
William H. Barger the first postmaster. The postmasters since 
have been: W. G. Barger, Andrew L. Campbell and E. L. Dunn. 

Jas. H. Bledsoe died in 1878. He was the first successful mer- 
chant who engaged in the mercantile business on Lick Creek, in 
Green Sulphur District, after the war. In those days he hauled his 
goods from Charleston, Jackson's River, and later from White 
Sulphur Springs. A little box of matches, containing 100, sold at 
ten cents; straw hats, sewed together with flax thread, for $1.00; 
a barrel of Kanawha salt sold at S9.00. 

It was in 1878 that the first Catholic Church was completed, 
which was located in Hinton, and is the building now occupied for 
the Catholic rectory, on the lot upon which is now situated a hand- 
some brick Catholic church. This church was erected through the 
efforts of Father David P. Walsh. 

In May, 1878, Adam Poff, from Jumping Branch District, killed 
a catamount three feet long and twenty inches high, the largest 
known to have been killed within the county. 

The contract for keeping the paupers for 1878 was awarded to 
D. G. Lilly, at $619. In 1877 it had been awarded to the same gen- 
tleman for $1,000. 

In 1878 a great storm visited the flat top country. John Vest's 
house was unroofed, and a pine tree was torn up and carried sev- 
eral miles and deposited in his field. A heavy iron kettle was 
blown away and never found. 

In 1878 the construction of a steamboat was undertaken by a 
number of enterprising citizens of the county, and on the 15th' of 
June a great excursion was pulled off from Hinton to the mouth of 
Bluestone, consisting of boats in the river and vehicles by land, 
practically all of the population turning out. Speeches were made, 
a large amount of subscriptions to the enterprise being secured. 
The boat was afterwards completed, and known as the "Cecilia." 
It made a few trips between Hinton and Bull Falls, but proved to 
be a failure, being too large for the rough waters through which 
it had to pass. The promoters of the' enterprise lost largely. 

The Methodist Episcopal Church South was formally dedicated 
in June, 1878; Vincent W. Wheeler, pastor; Rev. Dr. J. J. Lafferty 
preaching the dedication sermon. 

Whitcomb Lodge, No. 62, A. F. & A. M., was installed in 1878; 
and it was during this year that the first appropriation made by 
the Government for improving New River was made by Congress. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 175 



The Hinton postoffice was not made a postoffice money-order 
office until June, 1878. 

Bears were still occasionally seen in this section of the country 
as late as 1878. In July of that year a large black bear was seen 
crossing the field of L. Ballengee, just above Hinton. 

In 1878 Jos. Keaton, at Pipestem, found a rifle ball in a tree near 
its heart, while riveing boards. This rifle ball had been fired into 
this tree 135 years before. He counted the growths, and found, 
according to this count, that the ball was fired 135 years before. 

Summers County was yet without a jail, having used the Ra- 
leigh jail, and in August, 1878, the county court adopted the jail of 
Greenbrier County, which was continued until the jail now in use 
was constructed. The first jail, however, used for the county, was 
the one-story, one-room log house still standing in Avis. 

But one justice of the peace had been elected in Pipestem Dis- 
trict prior to 1878; but the population having increased over 1,200, 
the second justice was first elected for that district in this year. 

The first colored Baptist Church in the county was begun in 
Hinton in August, 1878. 

Shan. Rollison, a son of Chas. Rollison, the founder of Rollins- 
burg, was an independent candidate for the Legislature in 1878, 
but withdrew before the election in a strong letter to the people 
advocating the election of the Democratic nominee; and he is still 
a Bryan Democrat. B. S. Thompson was candidate for clerk of the 
county court against E. H. Peck; M. Gwinn, for the Legislature. 
R. F. Dennis, of Lewisburg, was nominated August 6, 1878, for 
State Senate, to represent the Eighth Senatorial District. 

J. M. Carden was also a candidate for clerk of the county court, 
E. H. Peck being elected. 

On August 22, 1878, a public meeting of the citizens of Hinton 
was held at the court house, for the purpose of taking action to- 
wards securing a graded school for Hinton, to be taught ten months. 
This was the first action towards a high school in Summers County. 

James Johnson, the venerable colored citizen of Avis, was dur- 
ing this time in his palmy days. He was captain of Captain Tom 
Quinn's "Black Swan," plying between Hinton and the salt works. 
"Uncle Jim," as he is usually known, is now nearly ninety years 
of age, still hale and hearty, independent, votes for whom he pleases, 
and is the oldest river man in the county. 

The Covington & Ohio Railway was originally incorporated in 
March, 1866, by an Act of the Legislature, which provided that no 



176 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



taxation should be imposed until the profits were ten per cent, on 
capital; and another Act, of February, 1867, provided for the com- 
pletion of this road and consolidation with the Virginia Central ; 
the West Virginia Central, the South Side, with the Norfolk & 
Petersburg R. R. Company, and for completion of the work of the 
Chesapeake Railway to the Ohio River ; and on consolidation 
the new company became vested with all the property rights, 
privileges and franchises which may have vested in either of the 
other companies prior to the acts of the consolidation; the consoli- 
dated roads thereafter taken to be known as the Chesapeake & 
Ohio Railroad Company; and the charter of the C. & O. Railroad 
Company was confirmed January 26, 1870. It was by virtue of 
these acts of the Legislature that the C. & O. Railway Co, claimed 
indemnity for many years from the burdens of taxation, and not 
the Act of 1875. Long litigation eventually followed, resulting 
finally in a decision of the Supreme Court of the United States 
requiring payment of taxes the same as individuals. Afterwards 
the C. & O. Railroad Co. went into the hands of a receiver, was 
- sold, reorganization took place, and was succeeded by the Chesa- 
peake & Ohio Railway Company. The Newport News & Missis- 
sippi Valley Co. was organized, and took over the entire system, 
under which name it was operated for a year or two, but after- 
wards reverted to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. 

The markets of November 27, 1877, showed eggs at \2y 2 cents 
per dozen; good butter, 20 cents; chickens, $1.50 per dozen; tur- 
keys, 15 cents per pound; corn, 50 cents per bushel; oats, 30 cents 
per bushel; wheat, $1.10; rye, 60 cents; meal, 50 cents; and beef, 
7 and 8 cents per pound. 

A. Williams, the courteous proprietor of the hotel at Beckley, 
began operating a hotel in Hinton in 1878, and continued for sev- 
eral years. 

The improvements by the LTnited States Government, with 
J. Proctor Smith in charge, began September 18, 1878, and contin- 
ued for some time. Large channels were cut through the shoals 
and shallow places, aiding the batteaux in passage; but otherwise 
no practical benefits have been derived. The operations were se- 
cured by the energy of Frank Hereford, a lawyer of Union, then 
in Congress. 

It was on the 9th of September, 1878, that the great greenback 
speech of Henry S. Walker was delivered at Hinton. He was the 
greatest orator ever produced by the State, and one of the greatest 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 177 



ever produced by any country. He was replied to on this occasion 
by Hon. Robt. Dennis, of Lewisburg, and Captain Elbert Fowler, 
of this county; and on the same day Dr. B. P. Gooch was nominated 
for delegate to the Legislature over Hon. M. Gwinn. The Green- 
backers at this election nominated a ticket. John Graham was 
an independent candidate for the Legislature at this election. 

The lumber mills of William James & Sons were built in the 
fall of 1878. 

The August election for 1878 showed the following results : 
John E. Kenna, Demorcat, for Congress, 748 votes; Walker, Green- 
back-Fusion, 205 votes: R. F. Dennis, State Senate, 646; Alex. 
Knight, Rep., 505 ; B. P. Gooch, Legislature, 585 ; J. C. Woodson, 
Greenback-Fusion, 503; John Graham, Independent, 289; B. L. 
Hoge, for circuit clerk, no opposition ; E. H. Peck, Democrat, 737; 
B. S. Thompson, Democrat, 484; J. M. Carden, Democrat, 176. No 
nominations were made for county officers, except for House of 
Delegates. 

The State school fund in 1878 was distributed as follows : For- 
est Hill District, $466.20 ; Greenbrier, $876.90; Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict, $523.90; Jumping Branch District, $545.60; Pipestem Dis- 
trict, $467.35 ; total, $2,879.75. 

William Hughes and W. C. Crockett were elected justices of the 
peace for Pipestem. 

In October, 1878, Josiah Lilly, of Jumping Branch District, was 
shot by Geo. W. Solesberry, with intent to kill. Lilly offered a 
reward of $25 for the apprehension of Solesberry. Solesberry was 
never apprehended, but was indicted about twenty years after- 
wards and acquitted. 

The steamboat "Cecilia" was launched on the 7th of Novem- 
ber, 1878, and made its trial trip December 19th. Its length was 
120 feet; 20 feet wide at beam, 124 feet boiler, carrying 175 pounds 
of steam ; 28-inch cylinders, 30-inch stroke, with powerful dummy 
engine. It was named after Mrs. Cecilia Miller, wife of William J. 
Miller, a locomotive engineer, who first suggested the steamboat 
scheme. J. H. Gunther, then railway agent at Hinton, was active 
in its promotion. R. R. Flannagan was also a large stockholder. 
The boat was entirely too large, and was, after a few trips, aban- 
doned, and the loss was practically total. It was scheduled to 
make three trips a week. 

The first brick school building was constructed in 1879. The 
citizens held a mass-meeting at the Baptist Church, and began an 



178 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

agitation, which resulted in the construction of what was then 
considered a fine building. It was two stories, with four rooms, 
and was located where the present modern building is now situ- 
ated. 

On January 5, 1879, Captain Wm. A. Reid died on his farm in 
the extreme upper end of the county. He was a gallant soldier 
in the Confederate Army, and returned to his farm after the war, 
and was elected justice of the peace, which office he held at the 
date of his death. Prof. John D. Swinney, now of Pittsburg, Pa., 
married his daughter. W. C. Crockett was appointed justice of the 
peace for Pipestem District as his successor. 

The appropriations made for New River improvements in 1879 
amounted to $12,000. 

J. H. Barger, a prominent farmer of Forest Hill District, also 
engaged in the manufacture of tobacco, died in March, 1879, at 
his residence in that district. He was an intelligent and enterpris- 
ing citizen, and an uncle of W. A. Barger, the present member of 
the county court. 

The public school in the city of Hinton was taught in 1879 by 
Dr. W. H. Manser and Miss Anna Hoge. The terms in those days 
were four months. In 1880 the school was taught by Chas. A. 
Clark and Jas. H. Miller. 

The county court for this year fixed the number of days' work 
on the public roads at six days for each man over twenty-one years 
and under fifty. 

The first agitation for oil and salt in this region, after the con- 
struction of the railroad, was in 1879, when the Hint on Oil, Salt & 
Mineral Co. was organized in March, the purpose being to bore for 
oil, salt and other valuables. J. W. Fuller was president, and 
M. A. Rifle, treasurer. Considerable prospecting was done, and 
finally a well put clown 600 feet, just beyond Stretcher's Neck tun- 
nel, at McKendree ; but nothing came of it. Considerable talk was 
indulged in that there was salt at Meadow Creek, by reason of the 
cattle congregating at a certain point near that place and using it 
for a lick. They came from all the region round about. When a 
farmer lost his stock, he usually found that they had strayed off to 
this point in search of salt water. 

The first trial for murder in this county was that of Page Ed- 
wards, a colored man, for killing his wife, on March 15, 1879. 
About the same time Hugh J. Wilburn killed Geo. W. Farley at 
Pipestem. Wilburn being suspicious of Farley, prepared himself 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 179 



with a shotgun, found Farley at his house, and, when he under- 
took to run away, shot him deliberately, however, having serious 
provocation therefor. Wilburn left the country, and has never re- 
turned from that day to this. He was closely pursued by G. L. 
Lilly, deputy sheriff, but succeeded in making his final escape. 
Edwards killed his wife at Talcott, and was tried at the April term, 
1879, by the circuit court. He was defended by Mark Jarrett, a 
young lawyer of Greenbier County, a son of James Jarrett, who 
had recently graduated, and was an orator of growing reputation, 
and who died several years afterwards in Portland, Oregon. 

The population of Hinton, including Avis, on June 12, 1879, 
from a census taken at that time, showed 775 whites and 225 blacks, 
a total population of 1,000. The number of youths between six 
and twenty-one years was 170 whites and 70 blacks. This was 
quite an increase, without a boom, as there were in the spring of 
1873 only six houses in the town, and two years before but two. 

The assessment in 1879 showed the number of horses and mules 
in the county to be 1,539, valued at $51,921 ; number of cattle, 3,- 
596, valued at $41,078; number of sheep, 4,426, valued at $4,426 — 
one dollar a head; number of hogs, 862, valued at $1,886; total 
value of personal and real estate for that year being $793,295, a de- 
crease of $41,000 from 1878. There were 1,449 white male inhab- 
itants over twenty-one years of age, and 128 colored, making a total 
population of male inhabitants between those ages within the 
county for 1879 of 1,577. 

It was on the 17th day of January, 1879, the famous negro riot 
began in Hinton. A fight occurred between Lon M. Peck, then a 
telegraph operator, and Pointdexter, a negro, after which the ne- 
groes undertook to mob Peck, and a riot ensued, the whites turn- 
ing out in full force, and for some time a young rebellion was in 
operation. The miners came up from New River coal regions and 
whipped a number of negroes, among them being Jim Nickell, Cary 
Lewis and Dick America, the leaders, who were driven from town. 

In July of this year James Johnson, colored, caught a catfish 
at the mouth of Bluestone River which weighed thirty-nine pounds 
— one of the largest ever caught in the county. 

The Hinton Milling Co. was organized July 25, 1879, in which 
Captain R. H. Maxwell and some gentlemen from Cleveland were 
interested, including J. R. Carmack, who operated in this section 
for some years, building a large steam mill on the bank of New 
River, from where the old Mills mansion had been washed away. 



180 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Col. J. J. Swope afterwards acquired the property, which later 
passed into the hands of J. A. Graham and D. M. Meador, and was 
finally destroyed by fire about five years ago. 

A school election was held on August 5, 1879. The candidates 
were D. G. Lilly and Jas. Prince. Lilly received 472 votes, and 
Prince 322. J. C. James was elected president of the Board of Ed- 
ucation of Greenbrier District; Henry Milburn, member of the 
board. 

The first attempt made to incorporate the territory now in- 
cluded in Avis and Hinton into a town was made on the 12th of 
August, 1879, the vote being against incorporation. A year after- 
wards Hinton voted to incorporate its present territorial limits, 
leaving Avis in the country. It was in July of this year that the 
Red Sulphur Springs, in Monroe County, near the Summers County 
line, was sold to Morton, Bliss & Co., of New York, for $9,000. 
A well was drilled at the mouth of Piney about this time for oil. 
Gas was discovered at a depth of 300 feet. 

Captain N. M. Lowery, a Hinton lawyer, was appointed fish 
commissioner in 1879. 

The financial statement for that year showed : Receipts, $6,- 
531.85; disbursements, $5,580.79. It was in this year also that the 
Hinton "Banner," a Greenback paper, suspended publication. 

The State fund for this year was distributed as follows : Forest 
Hill District, $436.76; Greenbrier, $889.53; Green Sulphur, $446; 
Jumping Branch, $491.14; Pipestem, $419.14; total for the county, 
$2,683.15. 

Col. W. B. Sprowl, the veteran hotel man, of the firm of 
Sprowl & Perkins, proprietors of the New River Hotel, one of the 
first hotels established in the town, died October 9, 1879. 

The postoffice at Clayton was established in November of this 
year; and in the same month a second telegraph wire was strung 
between White Sulphur and Hinton, there being but one line prior 
to that time. 

It was on November 13, 1879, that the celebrated house robbery 
of Crockett's store was done, by Jarrett Ballard, Henry Clark, Jas- 
per Wiseman and Green Evans, by which they secured $675 in cash 
and a large amount of merchandise. They went under the house 
and cut through the floor. Through the energy and activity of 
Captain Fowler one confessed, and the whole gang was captured 
and sentenced to the penitentiary. 




THE OLD GAULEY HOMESTEAD 
Of the Millers, Built One Hundred. Tears Ago. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 181 



BIG CREEK DISASTER. 



In the construction originally of the C. & O. R. R., wooden 
trestles were erected across Big Creek and Rowley's Creek, be- 
tween Hinton and the Big Bend tunnel ; that across Big Creek 
being seventy feet high. They have each been taken out, and fills 
and culverts placed in their stead. On March 25, 1881, a terrible 
railroad disaster occurred at the Big Creek trestle. A freight train 
was coming west over it, with a Mr. Nagle in charge of the en- 
gine ; the trestle gave way near the west embankm-ent, throwing 
the engine crew and train all into the bottom below. The timbers, 
being as dry as powder, immediately took fire. The wrecking 
crew of Captain Brightwell was hurried to the scene. Great crowds 
of people gathered. It was a sight never to be forgotten — the 
timbers and train burning, the dead and wounded lying around, 
the wrecked engine and machinery scattered, and a great gap in 
the line of road. Mr. Nagle, the engineer, was badly injured; 
Thomas McWilliams, killed outright; also, Heslip, and others, 
whose names are not now remembered, injured. Twenty-four cars 
went down, and several were burned. This resulted in the present 
crossing being made. Later on a wreck of the "Fast Flying 
Virginian" passenger train occurred by running into a rock, which 
had slid from the cliffs above, at a point a short distance above the 
mouth of Greenbrier, opposite Lafayette Ballengee's residence, 
throwing the mail and baggage cars over the embankment, one end 
at the water's edge, the other pointing to the track ; the engine being 
thrown on the upper side and wrecked, and great damage done. No 
passengers were injured, but the engineer was badly hurt. 

The enumeration of the youths for 1882 showed as follows : 
Greenbrier, 286 males, 263 females ; Jumping Branch, 268 males, 
267 females; Talcott, 234 males,. 272 females; Pipestem, 266 males, 
222 females; Green Sulphur, 235 males, 264 females; Forest Hill, - 
241 males, 265 females; total in the county, 1,650 males, 1,503 fe- 
males ; whole total, 3,750. 



ELECTION OF 1880. 



J. B. Jackson, Democrat. . . 
Geo. C. Sturgis, Republican 
N. B. French, Greenback. . 



958 
590 
188 



182 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



N. M. Lowery, Democrat, House of Delegates: 



Hinton 240 

Talcott 124 

Green Sulphur 60 

Griffith's Creek 26 

Forest Hill 51 

Keatley's 33 

Salt Works 25 

Pipestem 90 

Ellison's 40 

Jumping Branch 71 

New Richmond 58 



Total 818 

Jonathan Lilly, Greenback-Republican Fusion : 

Hinton .204 

Talcott 83 

Griffith's Creek 45 

Forest Hill 45 

Keatley's 78 

Salt Works 45 

Pipestem 23 

Ellison's 39 

Jumping Branch 84 

New Richmond 78 

Green Sulphur 59 



Total 813 



For prosecuting attorney, Elbert Fowler, Democrat, received 
673 votes; William R. Thompson, Democrat, 679; J. W. Malcolm, 
Greenback, 387. 

For sheriff, H. Gwinn, Democrat, 926; S. W. Willey, 766. 

For president of county court, M. C. Parker, 840 ; A. L. Harvey, 
724. 

For commisioner county court, Jos. Hinton, Democrat, 605 ; 
B. P. Shumate, Democrat, 643; J. C. McNeer, Democrat, 573; John 
Graham, Republican, 514; L. A. Shanklin, Greenback, 469; J. H. 
Duncan, Greenback, 469; Z. A. Woodson, Independent, 119. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 183 



For assessor, James O'Meara, 137; Levi Neeley, Sr., 415; T. R. 
Maddy, 365 ; W. C. Dobbins, 594. 

For surveyor, William Houchins, Jr., 382; M. Smith, 780; Zach 
Martin, 403. 

No nominations except for House of Delegates were made. 

The first mayor of Hinton was W. Q. Benedict, elected without 
contest. James Prince, first recorder; R. R. Flannagin, James 
Coast, B. Prince, W. F. McClung, J. H. Gunther composed the first 
council elected in 1880. 

The justices for Greenbrier District elected at this election were 
L. M. Dunn and Jas. E. Meadows; Green Sulphur District, M. 
Gwinn and Wm. R. Taylor ; Talcott, Griffith Meadows and E f C. 
Flint; Forest Hill, E. L. Dunn and L. G. Lowe; Jumping Branch, 
J. A. Parker and John W. Harvey; Pipestem, William Hughes and 
A. G. Austin. 

The State school fund for 1880 was distributed as follows : 



Thos. W. Townsley was elected constable of Forest Hill Dis- 
trict in this year for a term of four years. 

The first town sergeant for the town of Hinton was Matthew 
Vincent Calloway, afterwards deputy sheriff under W. S. Lilly, and 
high sheriff for four years, elected in 1884 over said W. S. Lilly, and 
is now holding an honorable position in the Internal Revenue De- 
partment in Washington. Mr. Calloway was a most efficient official 
and genial gentleman. He married a Miss Callahan, of Lynchburg, 
Va. His son, Robert Lowry, is now engaged with the Hinton Hard- 
ware Co., in Hinton. He was one of the first three settlers in 
Hinton, and is one of the pioneers. 

Election of county superintendent May, 17, 1881. There were 
but two candidates, Hon. David Green Lilly, now deputy sheriff of 
Mercer County, and a resident of Bluefield, who had held the office 
for two full terms of two years by election, and James H. Miller. 
No nominations were made, both parties running without the sup- 



Forest Hill 

Greenbrier 
Green Sulphur . 
Jumping Branch 
Pipestem ...... 

Talcott 



$414.77 
497.90 
451.93 
486.18 
422.80 
418.68 



Total 



$2,692.06 



184 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



port of the organization of any political party. The vote stood as 
follows : 





Miller. 


Lilly. 


Talcott 


98 


11 


Hmton 


106 


148 


Griffith's Creek 


31 


0 


Green Sulphur 


. . 84 


18 


1 1 1 til 111 li t y 1 . i- ' l 11 r* Vl 


^ 7 


4? 


New Richmond 


30 


3 


Ellison's . . . 


24 


36 


Pipestem 


48 


14 


Salt Works 


22 


35 


Forest Hill 


33 


35 


Keatlevs 


23 


48 


Total 


556 


390 



The board of education for Greenbrier District elected was J. C. 
James, president; T. G. Swatts and Peter M. Grimmett; Talcott 
District, Jas. K. Scott, president, and A. J. Wallace and William Cf 
Hedrick; Forest Hill, James Keatley, president, and J. F. Barton 
and W. C. Woodrum; Pipestem, A. T. Clark, president, and James 
Cook and Andrew Williams; Jumping Branch, Levi M. Neely, Sr., 
president, and Vandalia B. Harvey and F. W. Atkinson, members; 
Green Sulphur, W. J. Harris, Republican, president, and Rev. H. N. 
Fink and J. S. Duncan. 

A street railway for Hinton was agitated as far back as 1881, but 
none has as yet arrived. It was on the 15th of June, 1881, that H. 
W. Fuller was appointed general passenger agent of the C. & O. 
Railway. It was in June, 1881, that A. B. Perkins, J. Prince and 
John P. Mills were elected ruling elders of the Presbyterian Church 
of Hinton. 

In 1838, Wm. E. Miller caught a tortoise on his farm and cut 
the date of capture and initials on its shell and turned it loose. In 
June, 1881, he caught it again, and found the date and initials dis- 
tinctly on its shell. 

The only strike of the C. & O. employees that we have infor- 
mation of was on December 15, 1881, when the rules required each 
conductor to keep two brakemen at the wheel constantly. This 
was strenuous, in winter especially, and a strike was ordered, but 
was shortly adjusted and assumed no great proportions. 

James Prince was appointed by President Harrison postmaster 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 185 

at Hinton, and held a full term of four years. L. M. Dunn had 
held the office from its organization as a fourth-class post office 
until this date, when it had grown some years before into a Presi- 
dential office. 

On June 12th of this year Captain T. O. Sharp, division super- 
intendent, one of the first and most widely known railway men, 
died. He had some time previously lost a leg in a railroad accident. 
Captain Sharp was much beloved, was a Virginia gentleman and 
one of the first settlers of Hinton. His son, Lee, now lives in Hunt- 
ington. His daughters, Mrs. M. J. Cook and Mrs. Prof. Kounse, 
still reside in Hinton, and one other daughter, Mrs. Wall, and 
the widow reside in Huntington. 

James F. Meadows this year cut from his farm near the mouth 
of Greenbrier an oak tree, from which he split 3,750 pipe staves. 
These monarchs of the woods are now all gone and are things of 
the past in this county. 

In June, 1881, Richard Burke and S. F. McBride founded the 
first Republican paper in the county, "The Hinton Republican." 
Mr. Burke removed his "Monroe County Register" from Union and 
started this paper as a weekly local. 

In Jure of this year Mrs. Elizabeth Cales, one of the aboriginal 
settlers, died, over 100 years old. She died at the residence of 
Eber Willey, in Greenbrier District. 

The court docket of the February Term of the circuit court 
showed 100 State cases ; 136 chancery, and 60 law cases ; 30 new 
chancery suits being brought to that term. 

It was at this term that Judge Ira McGinnis, of the Cabbell Cir- 
cuit, held court for Judge Holt, and gave the sheriff, clerk and 
attorneys a round shaking up. He fined Sheriff Gwinn twenty-five 
dollars, fined the clerk, and threatened the attorneys, but remitted 
his fines before his adjournment. 

The fine quarry at New Richmond was being operated at that 
place on the lands of J. A. Richmond, fifty men being engaged in 
labor on getting out the stone in 1881. The first hardware store in 
the county was opened by B. Prince in Hinton in 1881. 

The survey for the Atlantic & Northwestern Railroad was com- 
pleted through the county this year. This was the road in which 
the great statesman, James G. Blaine, was interested, and which 
built its line from Richmond, Va., to Clifton Forge, Va., and then 
sold out all its holdings to the C. & O. 

It was in 1881 that the dwelling of a Mr. Hall, a farmer at the 



186 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

mouth of Tom's Run, in Pipestem, was robbed in daylight, the fam- 
ily being absent at church on Sunday. One Ballard and others en- 
tered and took the proceeds of Mr. Hall's tobacco crop from a trunk, 
he having just shipped it and secured the returns from its sale. A 
posse was organized, guards placed at the river crossing, and on the 
following night Allen Ballard and his confederate, who was sup- 
posed to be Henry Keatly, of Stinking Lick, came to one of the 
crossings. Ballard was shot in the thigh and captured, tried later, 
and convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary. The proof was 
not sufficient against Keatly, who was afterwards captured and 
discharged. The money was never recovered. Allen Ballard was a 
son of Baldwin Ballard, one of the richest and most sensible men 
of Monroe County. 

T. G. Swatts was elected mayor of Hinton in 1881. The grove of 
trees jiow flourishing in the court house park were planted in 1882 
by M. V. Calloway and B. Brice. The census bulletin of 1880 
showed the population of Hinton to be 1,031. The State school 
fund for 1881 was $2,565.88. 

It was in 1881 that Captain Alex Atkinson, one of the builders 
of the round-house in Hinton, and who made the excavation there- 
for, was killed by a train on the C. & O. He was the father of Miss 
Maggie Atkinson, of Hinton, Captain Frank Atkinson, of the 
C. & O., and of Charles, Alex and James Atkinson, all railway em- 
ployees. Captain Alex Atkinson was a noted railway contractor, 
and had aided largely in building the C. & O. Railway, both before 
and after the war. He was a native of Ireland and a man of fine 
judgment and enterprise. 

The number of dogs in 1881 in Forest Hill District was 218; 
Jumping Branch, 235 ; Pipestem, 181. The tax was $328.00. 

The channel cut by the government in New River was opened 
to mouth of Lick Creek in Pipestem District, May 1, 1881. 

The county levy for this year was ninety-five cents on the 
$100.00. 

An oak tree cut from the lands of J. E. Meadows this year pro- 
duced 2,500 pipe staves. 

The receipts for the county treasury for 1881 was $7,845.87; 
disbursements, $5,788.15, leaving $2,057.72 to pay on the debt of 
the county. 

In 1881, Captain R. H. Maxwell built the largest row-boat for 
plying on New River, to be operated on New River, ever constructed 
in these parts. It was used especially in his lumber and stave busi- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 187 



ness in the upper parts of the county. He was then largely operat- 
ing in the stave trade on Lick Creek in Pipestem, and it was out of 
this business and his contract with Joseph Thompson that the 
famous law actions and suits grew which filled the court records 
for many years, resulting in his success eventually. 

In 1881 the Hereford Guards were ordered by the governor to 
Montgomery to quell a strike of the miners at Crescent. 

The State school fund for this year was distributed as follows: 
Forest Hill, $380.09; Greenbrier, $478.86; Green Sulphur, $466.42; 
Pipestem, $367.64; Talcott, $420.76. 

W. F. Benedict was the first mayor of Hinton, elected January 
5, 1881, and served several terms. Upon the resignation of M. V. 
Calloway as sergeant, J. W. Malcolm, an attorney, now living in 
Charleston, was appointed sergeant. 

Mr. Calloway had a handsome residence and was pleasantly 
situated near the bridge across the branch of the river where R. H. 
Maxwell's house is now situated, all of which was destroyed in the 
great flood of 1878. 

The first session of the county court under the present system 
was held January 18, 1881. 

F. W. Mahood, a very brilliant lawyer and one of the first who 
settled in the county and associated himself with Hon. W. W. 
Adams, died in February, 1881. 

Preston Rives Sherred was an independent candidate for county 
superintendent in 1881. He was a crank who had been over-edu- 
cated, a good man and harmless. He did not make the race to the 
end. The older teachers will remember him, as well as his great 
eccentricities and quaint and original demeanor. 

James H. Miller was a candidate for his first office this year 
against David G. Lilly, defeating him by 166 votes, neither party 
being the nominee of any party — a "scrub race." 

The town of Hinton began passing ordinances against animals 
running at large this year, and have kept it up ever since. 

There was a great scarcity of feed for cattle in the spring of 
1881, and many died for the want of same. 

One of the largest oak trees was cut this year from the lands of 
Lafayette Ballengee, near Hinton, from which he split 2,000 pipe 
staves from the one tree. 

The neatest hotel in the town was the Hinton House, owned 
by William C. Ridgeway, located on the corner of Third Avenue and 
Front Street. It was destroyed by fire May 5, 1881. 



188 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Captain W. C. Ridgeway, one of the first settlers of Hinton, was 
appointed to assess the real estate in 1880, but resigned and refused 
appointment, something unusual. Captain Ridgeway was from 
Southwest Virginia, a very warm-hearted, generous man, a veteran 
in the Confederate Army, and owned the Hinton Hotel, on the 
corner of Third Avenue and Front Street. He was charged at one 
time with manufacturing his own ardent spirits for use in his 
bar-room, with still, etc., in the basement of his hotel, and that, 
when same was burned, a lot of "paraphernalia" for producing the 
"ardent" was destroyed in the fire. It was never known whether 
these rumors were true or false. He sold liquor, license or 
no license, and was understood to run his "blind tiger." He had 
his faults and his friends. He died several years ago, leaving no 
relatives in this country, and was buried in the Hill Top Cemetery 
and his faults forgotten and his good actions remembered. 

The Episcopal congregation was organized in Hinton about 
1882, the vestrymen elected at the time being Major Benj. S. 
Thompson, Hon. Wm. W. Adams, Hon. Cameron L. Thompson, 
Dr. C. B. Blubaugh and W. J. Garner. 

The report of assessment for personalty, as reported by Alonzo 
M. Hutchinson, who was deputy assessor for 1882, showed as fol- 
lows : Forest Hill, $4,863, increase over 1881; Green Sulphur, in- 
crease $1,909; Greenbrier, $8,000, increase; Jumping Branch, $987, 
increase; Pipestem, $4,625, increase; Talcott, $8,131, increase. 

The residence of Hon.. Wm. Haynes at Oak Lawn was struck 
by lightning in June, 1882. It struck a small tree near the kitchen, 
demolished the stove, killed a number of chickens, destroyed all 
his dishes, one chair and the dining table, around which Mr. Haynes 
and his family were seated for dinner, but no one was injured. 

The State school fund for 1882 was distributed as follows : Forest 
Hill, $538.50; Talcott, $644.00; Greenbrier, $670.00; Pipestem, 
$574.07; Jumping Branch, $642.00 ; Green Sulphur, $718.04, a total 
of $3,788.07, quite an increase over 1881, which was $2,555.00. 

Thos. E. Ball and (Curly) Joe Lilly elected in 1882 for justices 
in Jumping Branch District. 

Results of election in 1882 as follows: Kenna, Democrat, 870; 
Butrick, Republican, 624; Reynolds, Prohibition, 69; A. C. Snyder, 
Democrat, for judge of Supreme Court, 928; F. A. Guthrie, Green- 
back Republican, 640; J. G. Lobban, State Senate, Democrat, 832; 
Jas. Mann, 646; A. A. Miller, House of Delegates, 904; S. W. 
Willey, 683; B. P. Shumate, commissioner county court, 872; Syl- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



189 



vester Upton,. 711. For issue of bonds to build jail, 949, against 396. 
Republican vote in 1880 was 590 ; in 1882, 683. There were 1,700 
votes cast at the election in 1882. This was one of the liveliest 
campaigns ever conducted in Summers County. 

In 1882 there were 239 whites and twelve colored inhabitants 
assessed for capitation in Forest Hill District; 267 horses and mules, 
581 cattle. 1.047 sheep. 38 hogs, 75 wagons. Farming utensils as- 
sessed at $1,275.00 ; total personal property, $30,555.00. This was 
for Forest Hill District. Greenbrier District. 467 whites and fifty- 
six colored capitations : 191 horees and mules, 343 sheep, 356 hogs, 
30 wagons ; value of farm utensils, S779.00 ; total personal property 
assessment, $83,892.00. Green Sulphur District. 363 whites and ten 
colored assessed for capitation ; 306 horses and mules, 961 cattle, 
1,028 sheep, 142 hogs. 61 wagons; farming utensils valued at 
Sl,852,00; total. $68,755.00. Tumping Branch District, 316 whites, 
nine colored capitations; 271 horses and mules, 769 cattle, 754 sheep, 
202 hogs, 48 wagons; farming utensils. Sl.208.00; total personal 
property, $32,320.00. Pipestem District, 262 whites and forty-four 
colored capitations; 263 horses and mules, 615 cattle, 748 sheep, 101 
hogs, 52 wagons : value of farming utensils, Sl,032.00; total valu- 
ation, $33,075.00. Talcott District, 272 whites, forty-one colored 
capitations ; 287 horses and mules, 703 cattle. 79 hogs, 78 wagons ; 
value of farming utensils, $1,463.00; total personal property valu- 
ation, $64,903.00. 

Total white males over twenty-one years of age, 1,808; colored. 
173 ; voting population, 1,980: total personal property valuation in 
county, S313,400.00. In 1881 it was S255.323, an increase of S58,143. 

William Davis one of the oldest farmers in the county, residing 
on the waters of Madam's Creek, raised a beet in 1882 weighing 
"fourteen pounds. James Boyd raised a potato near Wiggins which 
weighed two and one-half pounds. 

The stockyards were completed at Pence Springs, on the old 
Samuel Gwinn farm, in 1882, with a capacity to accommodate 800 
cattle. These stockyards were, some twenty years afterwards, 
removed to the city of Avis. 

On December 8, 1882, a fearful wreck occurred at Stretcher's 
Neck Tunnel, caused by a head-end collision in that tunnel, by which 
Henry Ancarrow, engineer, and Patrick Goheen, fireman, of Hinton, 
were instantly killed, the trains being burned up. Frank Kennedy, 
conductor on the Pullman, had both legs broken. Benton Thomp- 
son, baggageman, back and arm broken : John J. Madden, engineer 



190 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



on No. 4 passenger train, killed. The collision was caused by No. 4, 
a passenger train, and a freight colliding. Andrew Cash, a news- 
boy, had his ankle broken; Robert Dickinson, brakeman, slightly 
hurt; Stephen Coleman, porter, slightly injured. 

The Hinton Republican newspaper suspended after the election 
in 1882, Richard Burk, editor and publisher. 

The real estate valuation, as completed by J. M. Allen in 1882, 
amounted to $682,370.00 for the county, an increase of $76,685.00 
over 1875. In 1875 the valuation made by S. W. Willey amounted 
to $605,648.00. 

In 1882, Hiram Scott, the veteran hotel-keeper died, who early 
in the settlement of the town o'f Hinton opened the New River 
Hotel on the site where the Chesapeake Hotel is now situated. He 
was the father of Mrs. C. B. Mahon, Mrs. R. T. Dolin, and Mrs. 
Wm. Browing. He was born June 24, 1812, his death occurring 
June 28, . 

The contract for the present brick jail was let in 1883. 

Under the old law and Constitution prior to 1881, the 
county courts were composed of justices of the peace, and classifica- 
tion was made amongst the various justices. On May 21, 1877, this 
classification was made for Summers County — May Term, M. A. 
Manning and M. Gwinn, and November Term, L. M. Dunn and 
J. A. Parker. 

William R. Thompson admitted to practice law March 20, 1877. 

The rates of toll for the Hinton Ferry, established in 1877, were 
as follows : Six-horse wagon and driver, 60 cents ; four-horse wagon 
and driver, 50 cents ; two-horse wagon and driver, 40 cents ; three- 
horse wagon and driver. 35 cents ; two-horse carriage and driver, 
25 cents; horse and rider, 10 cents; cattle, 5 cents each; each foot 
passenger, 5 cents ; hogs and sheep, per score, 20 cents ; each 100 
pounds of freight. 5 cents. 

Judge David E. Johnson was admitted to practice law in this 
county June 17, 1877. 

Erastus Preston Lowe was drowned at Lowell, March 4, 1875. 
Body recovered April 30th, down at the island at Talcott, Wood- 
son's Island. 

In 1896 a new cable was put across the river at the ferry. 

It was in March, 1883, the Big Bend Tunnel caved in. The 
wooden arching, having become decayed, gave way, and filled up 
the tunnel with stone and debris. A freight train was passing 
through at the time, the engineer and one or two others being 
killed. The passengers had to walk over the Big Bend Mountain, 
a distance of some three miles, and baggage had to be transferred 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 191 



by wagon until the tunnel could be opened. This continued for 
several days. A coroner's inquest was held at the instance of 
Captain Elbert Fowler, who was then prosecuting attorney, the 
tunnel condemned, and the railroad company forced to arch the 
tunnel with brick, which took several years to complete, and cost 
an immense sum of money. The work was done without the sus- 
pension of traffic day or night. 

The value of school property in 1883 in the county was $9,521.00. 
There were forty-two log houses and twenty-four frame houses ; 
4,152 children of school age. the total enrollment being only 2,433. 
Total number of teachers for this year was 81 ; 65 white male 
teachers, 10 white female teachers and six colored teachers. The 
receipts for the year were $8,415.18; disbursements, $6,389.32; the 
building fund was $3,855.00. 

W. R. Duerson was elected mayor of Hinton in 1883. D. L. 
Reid was pastor of the M. E. Church South, and T. H. Lacy, rector 
of the Episcopal Church. 

The election results in 1883 were as follows : C. P. Snyder, for 
Congress, Democrat, 163; J. H. Brown, Republican, 202, at Hin- 
ton; H. F. Kesler, Democrat, for superintendent of schools, 168; 
Albert Cotton, Republican, 193 ; Snyder's total vote in the county 
was 690; Brown's, 637; Kesler's, 681; Cotton's, 641. J. C. James 
was elected president of the Board of Education of Greenbrier 
District, and T. C. Maddy, member of the board. In Talcott Dis- 
trict, A. C. Lowe, president, and A. A. Allen and George A. Boyd, 
members. Forest Hill, W. C. Woodrum, president; J. F. Barton 
and J. H. Manville, members. Green Sulphur, John Hicks, presi- 
dent; J. S. Duncan and W. N. Fink, members. Pipesteirr, H. H. 
Martin, president ; Jas. Cook and Chapman Farley, members. 
Jumping Branch District, F. W. Atkinson, president; John W. Hin- 
ton and John F. Ellison, members. 

The first cornet band was organized in Hinton in 1883 by W. B. 
Riley, leader ; C. W. Bocock, president. 

Caleb Noel, an honored soldier of the War of 1812, died this 
year at the residence of his daughter, Mrs. L. M. Meadows, at the 
mouth of' Bluestone. 

J. H. Jordan and Peter F. Grimmett were the examining board 
for this year, and E. H. Peck was the Worthy Master of Whitcomb 
Lodge, No. 62, of the Masonic fraternity. 

County bonds were this year voted for $3,200.00 to pay for the 
construction of the county jail. 



192 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The county levy for 1883 was sixty-five cents on the $100.00. 

C. L. Thompson was favorably spoken of for State auditor on 
the Democratic ticket. He was then editor and proprietor of the 
Mountain Herald newspaper. 

The total amount of State school fund for this year was 
$3,655.70. 

It was during this year that the fatal epidemic of smallpox in- 
fested the county. Dr. Gooch had charge of the management for 
the Board of Health, which was done in a most capable and ef- 
ficient manner. The disease appeared in a malignant form, and 
much suffering and a number of deaths resulted therefrom. The 
cost to the county was considerable, but I am unable to state the 
amount. 

It was during this year that John McGee, town sergeant, was 
knocked down and robbed. 

The assessments for this county for this year were increased 
by the assessors to the extent of $90,000.00. 

The court docket for the September Term of 1883 showed 71 
State cases, 34 common law cases, and 146 chancery cases. 

W. B. Ryder was made general superintendent of the Hunting- 
ton Division of the C. & O. Railway in 1883, succeeding W. P. 
Harris. Raymond Dunn resigned during this year as foreman of 
the roundhouse, and was succeeded by C. L. Robinson. Mr. Ryder 
was exceedingly unpopular. He undertook, as superintendent of 
the railway, to control the elections of the county, especially that 
of prosecuting attorney, by reason of the action of Mr. Fowler in 
compelling the company to place the Big Bend Tunnel in a con- 
dition of safety to the public, as well as the railroad employees. 
The arching of this tunnel will remain as a monument forever to the 
fearlessness of Captain Fowler as a public official. Mr. Ryder's 
services were soon after dispensed with. 

John N. Woodson, a colored man, opened a barber shop in 
Hinton directly after the formation of the county. He accumulated 
considerable property. Being made to believe by a coal miner that 
the mountain was full of coal on the opposite side of the river from 
the railway station, he, some time prior to 1883. purchased that 
mountain side beyond the county road at the lower ferry landing 
in Raleigh County, and drove his entry for a coal mine several 
hundred feet into the mountain, spending all of his property and 
bankrupting himself at the enterprise. He abandoned his opera- 
tions in 1883, leaving nothing to show for his enterprise except a 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 193 



long tunnel into the mountain, which remains until this day as a 
monument to his industry and bad judgment. 

J. Maston Hutchinson, one of the most esteemed citizens of 
Forest Hill District, died on the 16th day of October, 1883, aged 
sixty-eight years. He was a Methodist in his religious opinions 
and a Republican in politics, but was revered by all persons and 
all classes, and left an honored name to his posterity. 

The establishment of a bank in Hinton was first discussed in 
November, 1883, but the enterprise was not established for several 
years afterwards. 

A new frame missionary Baptist Church, 34 x 50 feet, was built 
this year at Jumping Branch, which cost $1,000.00, R. H. Stewart 
being its first pastor. 

It was on December 8, 1883, that the Republican party in the 
county was re-organized, and Squire Jack Buckland made his 
famous speech, in which he proposed to make the "furriners" take 
a back seat and to relegate them to the rear. 

C. W. Bocock was elected mayor of Hinton for 1884; B. L. 
Hoge, recorder; Robt. Elliott, T. G. Swatts, J. C. McDonald, J. A. 
Rifle, W. F. Galloway, councilmen. 

Foss Post Office was established in June, 1884, with W. L. 
Raines as first postmaster. 

Hon. C. L. Thompson was endorsed by the Democratic party 
for State Auditor by the County Democratic Convention, April 12, 
1884. Summers County then had ten votes in the Democratic State 
Convention. 

Buck Post Office was established in May, 1884, with Jordan 
Grimmett as its first postmaster. 

C. W. Bocock, a descendant of the celebrated Virginia 
Bocock family, one of whom had been Speaker of the House 
of Representatives of the United States Congress, located in Hin- 
ton in 1882 for the practice of the law, forming a co-partnership 
with Nelson M. Lowry, which continued for a year or two. Later, 
he was elected mayor of the town, but finally removed to Texas. 

John W. Harvey was elected justice of the peace of Jumping 
Branch District May 13, 1881, Joseph A. Parker being the other 
justice for the district. James H. Hobbs was elected constable of 
Greenbrier District at the October election, 1881. 

The court house yard was first enclosed in by a fence under 
contract between the county court and G. C. Hughes, on June 
26, 1884. It was a plain, rough-sawed plank and post fence, and 
cost $1.50 per rod. 



194 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The levy for county purposes in 1884 was fifty cents on the 
$100.00 valuation. 

The State school fund for this year amounted to $3,656.70. 

The Teachers' Institute for the county for this year — 1884 — 
was conducted by Prof. J. W. Hinkle, of Greenbrier County, a 
graduate of the Concord Normal School, and a self-made man who 
had arisen high in his profession and had been several terms county 
superintendent of free schools of Greenbrier County — a Christian 
gentleman and a magnificent man. He was afterwards elected prin- 
cipal of the Hinton High School, and, while conducting that school, 
died from typhoid fever under forty years of age. 

The first colored Methodist Church was begun in 1884. 

It was in 1884 that the West Virginia stone for the Washington 
Monument was secured. This stone came from the quarry at New 
Richmond, through Drs. Samuel Williams and Gooch, and is now 
in that great monument, a representative of the State and a monu- 
ment to Summers County. 

S. F. McBride began the publication of the "Hinton Headlight" 
- August 26, 1884, a Republican newspaper. 

Col. John G. Crockett was elected as a Democrat to the House 
of Delegates in 1884; E. H. Peck, clerk of the county court; B. L. 
Hoge, clerk of the circuit court ; and W. H. Bande, assessor ; James 
H. Miller, prosecuting attorney, and M. V. Calloway, sheriff. 

M. C. Barker threshed 800 bushels of wheat on his Gatliff Bot- 
tom this year. 

Frank Ellison, the father of Rev. M. Ellison, died December 
14, 1880, aged ninety years. 

The Hinton post office was robbed December 26, 1879, the 
robber securing $13.00. 

Agitation for a bridge across New River was first begun in 1880, 
but nothing was accomplished until 1906, when the new iron bridge 
was completed. 

The court house bell was purchased in January, 1880. 

Jarrett Ballard was sentenced to two years in the penitentiary; 
Clark, five years, and Green Evans four years in the February Term, 
1880, for breaking into the storehouse of Colonel Crockett. 

John L. Gilbert, a noted Methodist preacher well known in the 
county, died in February, 1880. 

To illustrate the general character of the late L. M. Dunn, we 
give the story of Mary Eliza Boon, who was the daughter of a 
poor woman of the county. She, while only a small child, was 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



195 



carried into captivity in 1874, and her return to her mother was 
by the efforts and at the expense of Mr. Dunn. Her mother's name 
was Minerva Staten, and married a Boon. A man by the name of 
Newell stole the child and carried her to Kentucky. Squire Dunn, 
learning of the circumstances, put out inquiries and had detectives 
put to work. After several years the child was located, but the 
woman was too poor to take any action. Mr. Dunn sent and had 
the man Newell arrested, who denied strenuously the authenticity 
of the claim ; but, from what the child could detail, there was no 
doubt, and, in order to prevent imprisonment, Newell finally con- 
fessed, and the child returned to its mother after an absence of six 
years. Newell was an adventurer who was temporarily in the 
Boon neighborhood. * 

The fare on the C. & O. Railway was reduced from five cents 
per mile to Zy 2 cents on March 1, 1880. 

The receipts from the Hinton post office amounted to $2,197.00 
from March 1, 1879, to the close of 1880, after being established as a 
money order office, which was on the former date. Six years before 
it paid S3.00 a quarter. 

The keeping of the paupers was sold to R. C. Lilly for 1880 
at $446.00. 

Captain William McClandish, the first foreman at the round- 
house, a prominent and gentlemanly citizen and one of the first 
settlers in Hinton after the railroad was built, died in 1880. He 
was the father of the locomotive engineer, Eugene McClandish, the 
largest resident of Hinton at this date, weighing 350 pounds, and 
was a jolly, sensible gentleman, and also the father of Mrs. T. G. 
Swatts. 

In Forest Hill District in 1880 there was a population of 1,300, 
132 farms, 247 horses. 25 mules, 1.511 sheep. 757 hogs, 7,048 pounds 
of tobacco. 

In Tumping Branch District, 1,496 inhabitants, 320 horses, 38 
mules, 123 cattle, 1,192 sheep, 1,876 hogs. 

In Pipestem District, 1,307 inhabitants; Talcott, 1,394 inhabi- 
tants; Greenbrier, 2,048. The population of Hinton in 1800 was 
1,183. 

The Democratic Convention was held in Hinton on August 4, 
1880, for the Third Congressional District. The candidates were 
Chas. E. Hogg, now the Dean of the Law School at the University 
of West Virginia; Eustace Gibson, of Huntington, and John E. 



196 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Kenna. The latter was nominated and Captain Gibson nominated 
for Presidential elector. 

The population of the county in 1880 was 9,192. 

The county levy for 1880 was $1.00 on the $100.00 valuation. 

F. D. Lee was rector of the Episcopal Church in 1880. 

There was a Hancock and English Club organized at Green Sul- 
phur in September, 1880, by Dr. Samuel Williams, with Captain 
A. A. Miller, president; James H. Miller, secretary; John K. With- 
row, treasurer, and W. J. Kink, vice-president. Two Hancock and 
English flags were raised, one presented by Hon. C. L. Thompson, 
of Hinton, and the other by the Democratic ladies of Green Sulphur. 
The latter was sent to the breeze on the tallest pole ever hoisted 
in the county. 

Hon. George C. Sturgiss, Republican candidate for Governor, 
addressed the citizens at the court house on the 15th of August, 
1880. He is now a member of Congress from the Second West 
Virginia District, elected in 1905. 

Judge Homer A. Holt was re-elected judge of the circuit court 
. in 1880 without opposition, the salary then paid being $1,800.00 
per year. 

Henry Still, a prominent and aged farmer of Griffith's Creek, 
attempted to commit suicide by cutting his throat in 1880. 

William Allen committed suicide by hanging himself by the 
neck near Pack's Ferry on the mountain, by reason of temporary 
insanity, all of the family being absent. 

The C. & O. valuation in 1882 was fixed at $342,625.63, as fol- 
lows : In Green Sulphur District, $104,118.20; Greenbrier, $129,120, 
and Talcott, $109,380.43. 

The justices elected in 1884 were, for Greenbrier District, L. M. 
Dunn, John Buckland,. both Republicans ; for Jumping Branch, T. 
E. Ball and James M. Pack, both Democrats. For Talcott, Charles 
H. Graham, Republican, and M. A. Manning, Democrat; for Green 
Sulphur, M. Gwinn, Democrat, and J. A. Graham, Republican ; for 
Pipestem, R. W. Clark and J. C. Peters, Democrats; for Forest 
Hill, L. G. Lowe, Republican, and L. A. Shanklin, Democrat. For 
constables, Greenbrier, J. H. Hobbs and J. E. Foster, Republicans ; 
Tumping Branch, M. Cochran and John W. Harvey, Democrats; 
Talcott, A. P. Wheeler, Republican, and W. R. Taylor, Democrat; 
Green Sulphur, J. D. K. Foster and Robert Hix, Democrats; Pipe- 
stem, J. H. Dove, Democrat, and Robert A. Wood, Republican; 
Forest Hill, J. M. Anderson and J. W. Allen, Democrats. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 



197 



The total vote cast in 1884 was 2,132. The vote on the President 
was as follows : 





Cleveland. 


.blame. 


Hinton 


261 


268 


lalcott 


114 


0/ 


Grimth s Creek 


...... 23 


o9 


Green Sulphur . . . . 


103 


o4 


Brooks 


26 


29 


New Richmond , . , , 


44 


100 


Jumping Branch . . 


165 


59 


Ellison's 


35 


38 


Pipestem 


104 


35 


Salt Works 


54 


48 


Forest Hill 


57 


46 


Keatlev's 


42 


48 


Total 


1,058 


872 



Cleveland's majority, 186. 

In 1896 a new cable was placed across the river at the ferry by 
Captain T. C. Maddy at Talcott. Wilson Wheeler and another 
young man by the name of Wheeler, Henry Hedrick and Pat 
Rollyson were being ferried across the river by T. C. Maddy, using 
the new cable, to which they had not been accustomed. The boat 
was permitted to get square across the current, and was capsized 
and turned over, and each of the party thrown overboard. The 
river was high, and the two Wheelers were drowned. Their bodies 
were afterwards recovered down at Bacon's Hill, two miles below. 
The other parties were finally rescued, but had a narrow escape 
from death. 



CHAPTER XL 



CHANGES. 

It is wonderful to conceive and reflect upon the changes made 
within a developing country within the span of one ordinary hu- 
man life, or even within the life of this municipality, now thirty- 
six years of age. A retrospective glance over so short a period 
will astonish and interest, as well as instruct us, when we have 
not given the matter special consideration. The female members 
of almost every household were taught to sew, spin, knit, and many 
to weave clothing from wool, hemp, flax or cotton, and others even 
. working in the fields. Shoemaker shops were in every section ; 
every well-regulated farm had its loom-house, the barn and crib. 
The bed-clothing was made at home. They dyed their own woolen 
goods; jeans was woven for the men; the farmer raised his own 
hogs and cured his own bacon. All of this section made its own 
beef, poultry, butter and cheese ; raised its own fruit, milk and 
honey and vegetables. Green groceries were never thought of 
being bought ; they never sold their fruit and vegetables to their 
neighbors, but divided them with those who had not a supply of 
their own. Every fall the farmer would send his team to the salt 
works. No such thing as fertilizer was known. In the fall the 
winter's wood was secured ; a supply of apples, dried fruits, cider, 
apple butter and honey were secured for the winter months. They 
made their own soap from the kitchen greases. They made their 
own hominy from the whole grain steeped in alkali. They made 
cracked hominy with the mortar and pestle. They raised their 
own hemp, spun their own twine and made their own ropes. They 
raised their own sheep, from which they took the wool, carded the 
same, wove it, and dyed it with such colors as they saw proper 
from their own dyes. Tomatoes were a rarity, and known as "love 
apples," and were chiefly grown as curiosities. Canned fruit, 
canned and preserved meats and fish were unknown; neither were 
the substitutes for butter, the cow still having a monopoly. Horse- 
shoes and horse-shoe nails were made at the shop. Patent plows, 




NATIONAL BANK OF SUMMERS, IN 1905, 
Cor. Temple Street and Third Avenue. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 199 



as well as steam, were unheard of. Patent mowers, reapers, thresh- 
ers, planters, corn-shellers, and many other farming implements, 
were unheard of. Travel throughout these regions was by horse- 
back or by stage. There were no railroads, and no telephones; 
modern buggies, bicycles, automobiles, or modern carriages and 
buggies, were things unknown. There were no illustrated daily 
papers, and no other kind of daily papers in this region; neither * 
were there weeklies. Percussion cap guns, as well as the flint-lock, 
were still in use ; breech-loaders, Gatlings and the modern revolver 
were things of the imagination. The shot-pouch was made from 
the skin of some small animal; bullet moulds, powder horns, 
leather belt and butcher knife, were still in use as small arms. 
Lard oil was not known. No diamond drills were heard of. Geol- 
ogy and chemistry have made fast progress. They were unheard 
of in the curriculum of those who secured any part of an educa- 
tion. Grammars were not in use in the schools ; neither were al- 
gebra, geometry or scientific mathematics. The steam engines were 
still fired with wood. There was no pulp or paper twine, paper 
bags, paper collars, paper car-wheels, wall-paper, and very little 
paper of any character. The first paper mill erected west of the 
Alleghenies and south of Mason and Dixon's Line was located in 
"Possum Hollow," in the New River Valley of Virginia. There 
were no circular saws, no steam-made brick, no wire fencing, no 
gimlet-pointed screws or coal-digging machines. There were no 
postage stamps, postal cards, money orders or envelopes, and blot- 
ting paper was unheard of. The letters fifty years ago were folded, 
tucked in and stuck* fast with sealing-wax. Ink was dried with 
ashes or sand. Writing was done with the goose-quill pen. Gold 
pens were unheard of in this then new country. There were no 
fountain pens, no indelible pencils, no typewriters. Postage was 
twenty-five cents for a common letter, paid by the receiver. Gen- 
tlemen who smoked carried sun-glasses in their vest pockets, by 
which they concentrated the light from the sun, thereby firing their 
smoking machines. When there was no sun, they used the flint 
and steel; a jack-knife and gun flint and a piece of punk, which 
was rotten wood, dried. Sanitation was unheard of. The light in 
the household by night was produced by the home-made tallow- 
dips, with candlesticks and snuffers. Gas lights were unheard of, 
the first used even in New York for lighting purposes being in 
1827. Cook stoves and ice machines were unknown. Patent churns 
and washing-machines were undreamed of. No beet sugar or 
sorghum molasses. Wood was the entire fuel. Iron was melted 



200 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNT Y, WEST VIRGINIA. 



with charcoal ; coke was unheard of. The taste of lager beer was 
unknown ; wooden shoemaker's pegs, even, were a novelty. Great 
changes have been made in the dress of both ladies and gentle- 
men, and especially as to the former. Pantaloons were then made 
with a square flap in front, instead of the up-and-down seam. Pins 
and needles were a rarity. 

All has changed from the crudity of fifty years ago in this then 
isolated but happy region within the mountains. 

The first election of a legislative body on the American conti- 
nent was held in Virginia in 1619, which was the election of the 
House of Burgesses, the lower House of the Assembly. The office 
of justice of the peace was created in 1661. 

In 1810 the marshal who took the census, which was 203 years 
after the Jamestown settlement, reported that, with few exceptions, 
every household employed a weaving loom, and almost without ex- 
ception every family tanned its own leather. The materials for 
clothing were raised and manufactured by the inhabitants. The 
quantity was estimated to be twenty-six yards for each person. 
The weaving was done by the females, there being about three fe- 
male weavers for every loom. The establishment of stills was an 
invention of those days. They manufactured fifty or sixty gallons 
of whisky a day, and sold it for fifty cents a gallon. Barter was a 
common method of trading, the merchant taking everything he 
could find a market for in trade. 



LAND ASSESSMENTS. 

There have been five land assessments for the county, usually 
these assessments being made each ten years, but not always, this 
being^regulated by statute. Honorable S. W. Willy, the present 
postmaster of the city of Hinton, being the first, and made his re- 
assessment in the year 1875. The total valuation at that time, as 
made by him, was increased by $94,338.76. It was at that time all 
made as farm land, there being then no town lots within the borders 
of the county. 

The second reassessment of real estate of the county was made 
by James M. Allen, a son of Nathaniel Allen, in the year 1880, 
and the total valuation, as made by him at that date, was $817,240. 

The third reassessment was made in the year 1890, by Charles 
L. Peck, and the total valuation, as made by him, was $846,395. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 201 



The fourth reassessment was made by B. L. Kessler,'in the year 
1900, and the total valuation, as made by him, was $1,225,190. 

The fifth and last reassessment was made in the year 1905, by 
Jonathan Lee Barker, with James B. Lavender as his assistant, 
and the total valuation, as made by them, was $2,329,545. This 
assessment was made under the new tax system provided by 
the Act of the Legislature at the session of 1905, known as the 
"Dawson Reform Tax Laws," named after the present Governor, 
Hon. Wm. O. Dawson, who is given the credit of being the father 
of the present tax system of this State. Great opposition has de- 
veloped to the new system, and it remains yet to be seen whether 
or not it operates satisfactory for the purpose intended — that is, 
to create a uniform system of taxation, and provide for the equal 
distribution of the burdens thereof by all persons. By this sys- 
tem all property is required to be assessed at its true and actual 
value. Numerous amendments have been made already to organ- 
ize tax reform legislation. The large and powerful corporations, 
and especially those interested in coal lands and leases, are gen- 
erally opposed to the new system. In the campaign of 1904 a very 
vigorous fight was made against Governor Dawson, in his race 
for Governor, by reason of his strong advocacy of this new tax 
law. He ran largely behind his ticket in this State, something 
like 20,000 short of the vote cast for President Roosevelt. 

The valuation in 1871, at the formation of the county, was 
$527,989.40, and remained at that until the reassessment by Mr. 
Willy, in 1875. 



CHAPTER XII. 



IN WAR TIMES. 

The only war from which this territory has in any way been 
directly affected, or participated in, was that of the Civil War, 
from '61 to '65. It was not the scene of any great conflicts. It 
was inaccessible, there being no great highways or railroads 
through its confines ; but, by reason of its inaccessibility and 
broken character, it was the joy of the bushwhacker, home guards 
and guerrillas. 

The two Thurmond companies were the principal Confederate 
- retainers, those of Captain William Thurmond and Captain Phil. 
Thurmond, both residents of Fayette County, and who had 
organized, at the breaking out of the war, these companies. A 
number of the citizens of this county were members of these or- 
ganizations, known as Thurmonds' Rangers. 

Lorenzo D. Garten was the captain of a company of Federal 
retainers, known better as "Home Guards." They were never rec- 
ognized as Union troops, but were what was known as State 
troops. Thurmonds' companies were regularly attached to the 
regular armies of the Confederacy. There were no battles of any 
consequence fought in this county. Floyd's army of Confederates 
passed through Green Sulphur District in 1863, camping at Green 
Sulphur Springs. General Hayes' Brigade also passed through the 
county, passing down New River, out the Red Sulphur and Kana- 
wha turnpike, through Jumping Branch to Raleigh Court House ; 
with which Major William McKinley, afterwards President of the 
United States, was attached, both he and General Hayes succeed- 
ing to this high office. 

William Woodrum was killed in the fall of 1864, at the east 
end of the Big Ben Tunnel. He was not at that time a member 
of any army, as we are informed. 

A part of Thurmond's company had been detailed to cut off 
and capture a party of Union sympathizers under Captain L.-D. 
Garten, who had returned from Ohio to organize and carry some 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 203 



Union sympathizers through the lines. Thurmond's company hav- 
ing been informed of the intention of Captain Garten and his pro- 
ceedings, supposedly, and his brother Henderson Garten, who was 
a. member of Thurmond's company, a portion of both Phil, and 
William Thurmond's companies, of about seventy-five men, were 
detailed to intercept Captain Garten's proceedings. They proceeded 
to the mouth of Hungart's Creek, Garten's people having no in- 
formation of their presence, and prepared an ambuscade in the 
darkness. Garten and ten men, being Elias Y\ 'heeler, Ewell Garten, 
Goodall Garten, Lewis Meadows, Jackson Grimmett, Clark Grim- 
mett, Alexander Meadows, Hugh Boone, and, possibly, Davis 
Bragg, under the command of Captain Garten, proceeded down 
Hungart's Creek, and, before they knew of the proximity of the 
rebels, were almost surrounded. 

William Woodrum, who was a brother of Major Richard Wood- 
rum, of Wolf Creek, having joined Thurmond's men en route, got 
into the melee, and in close quarters with Captain Garten, at which 
time firing commenced, and Air. Woodrum was killed, having died 
in his tracks. Garten's men were scattered, but all made their 
escape. 

Later on, the same fall, Captain Garten and a small party of 
his followers were undertaking to pass down Laurel Creek and 
cross New River at Richmond Falls, thence to pass out through 
Raleigh, down the Kanawha and into the Ohio. On arriving at 
Samuel Richmond's, where the boys were shucking corn, they were 
attacked by a party of Witcher's Cavalry, who had gone out with 
Thurmond's men on a scout, Thurmonds' companies being infantry 
soldie; s. No one was killed or wounded. The Confederate cav- 
alry was compelled to swim its horses across New River, using 
canoes and swimming the horses at Richmond's Falls. Thur- 
mond's men proceeded on this raid along as far as Weston, in 
Lewis County, in what was known as the "Weston raid." 

In the fall of 1864, Thurmond's men were coming down Green- 
brier River, some in a large canoe and some on the banks, with 
the view to coming to the mouth of Greenbrier and going up New 
River. They were attacked by Captain Garten's company, near 
a large rock just below Powley's Creek. No one, however, was 
wounded or killed, but both companies took to their heels and 
ran off. Joseph Hmton, president of the county court at this time, 
was in this skirmish, as also was Squire Bob Saunders, of Forest 
Hill. THese are the only two names we have been able to ascer- 
tain. 



204 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Henderson Garten, a brother of L. D. Garten, before men- 
tioned, was sent out with Asbury Tincher, by Capt. Phil. Thur- 
mond, to bring him recruits and delinquents who had failed to 
perform army services. They proceeded to arrest Henry Martin, 
son of Nick Martin, and were proceeding towards camp with him, 
but never arrived. When on Keeney's Knob, near Stone Lick 
Knob, Martin was killed, and it was claimed that other outrages 
were perpetrated on his person. The war closing soon afterwards, 
Garten and Tincher were arrested and tried at Union for the mur- 
der of young Martin, who was a boy of age for military services. 
Garten was tried, convicted and sentenced to confinement in the 
penitentiary for sixteen years. He served some nine or ten years, 
was then pardoned, and lived on the mountain near Hinton until 
about ten years ago, when he sold out his farm to Jack Notting- 
ham, and with all of his family removed to Alissouri, where he is 
still residing, so far as we are informed. 

While in the penitentiary Mr. Garten learned the trade of gun- 
smith, and became celebrated throughout this region for the fine 
rifle guns which he manufactured at his shop. Nick Martin secured 
a continuance of his case, and was finally acquitted. 

After the war the Home Guards were disbanded in 1865. For 
some time, immediately after the surrender of the Southern ar- 
mies and the close of the war, Captain Garten and his Home 
Guards proceeded throughout the county to gather up what was 
called "Government property." The horses and material which the 
Southern soldiers had brought home from the army, whether 
United States property or not, were taken charge of, turned over 
to the Federal authorities and sold. These soldiers have never 
received any pay for their services. They have made numerous 
attempts to secure pensions from the general Government, but, 
being only what was known as State troops, pensions have, up to 
this time, been refused. Efforts have been made to secure pay from 
the State government, and it was understood that in 1901 a bill had 
been passed by the Legislature providing for pay ; but for some 
reason they have not secured pay. 

Squire John Buckland, who lived on Big Creek, about eight 
miles from Hinton, was the corporal of this company, and kept 
the records. A few years ago, about 1893, it was claimed that 
Squire Buckland had drawn the pay for a number of these soldiers 
and failed to distribute it to the individual members. Upon this 
discovery being made, some of his old comrades instituted an ac- 
tion before a justice of the peace, and the trial came on to be 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



205 



heard before L. M. Dunn. The trial lasted the entire day, and 
was held at Hinton. The plaintiff, Wm. H. Cales, was present, 
and had a large number of the company as witnesses; they claim- 
ing that Squire Buckland had gone to the Quartermaster Gener- 
al's, drawn their pay, signed their names and kept the money. 
Squire Buckland, of course, was present with his retainers, claim- 
ing that he had fully disbursed all of the money and producing re- 
ceipts, most of the receipts being signed by mark, he claiming 
that the soldiers were not educated sufficiently to sign their names. 
These receipts were repudiated. Judgment was given in favor of 
the plaintiff, which included many years' interest, the claims being 
ordinarily barred by the statute of limitations. Squire Buckland 
took an appeal to the circuit court, where judgment was rendered 
in his favor, Judge Campbell deciding that the plaintiffs had slept 
on their rights. 

Hon. Wm. R. Thompson represented the plaintiff in this liti- 
gation, and Jas. H. Miller and Colonel J. W. Davis defended Squire 
Buckland. The trial continued after dark. The plaintiffs' retain- 
ers, of which there were a large number, hitched their horses in 
the alley back of where the Hinton Department Company store rs 
now located, between Second and Third avenues. When they 
went to get on their horses that night to ride home, they found 
their saddles were all cut to pieces, as well as the bridles, and some 
of them carried off and scattered to the four winds of the heavens. 

Squire Buckland in this trial produced his records, showing his 
accounts as disbursing officer, which he claimed was a distribution 
of the proceeds of each raid made by the company. When they 
would make a raid and gather in some property, they would then 
meet and distribute the same. One man would get a dun horse ; 
another would get bed clothes ; another saddle blankets and sad- 
dles ; and so on, according to his book of distribution. 

W. G. Ryan, the first elected prosecuting attorney of this coun- 
ty, was the captain of a Confederate company, of brave soldiers, 
who fought throughout the war, being- a part of Vir- 
ginia regiment. A. A. Miller was not in the army, being over the 
army age provided for military services, but was a captain of the 
militia before the war, as was also Captain Robert Sanders. 

There were but two voters in favor of secession, who voted for 
that ordinance on Lick Creek, when voted on by the State of Vir- 
ginia, in what is now Green Sulphur District. They were John 
Richmond ("Sprightly John"), who lived on Hump Mountain, and 
Jefferson Bennett. John Richmond, with pride, said "he was the 



206 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



first man in Virginia who favored 'succeedin' ' outen the Union." 
This shows the almost unanimous sentiment and love for the flag 
in those days of bitterness and strife in the county, although it 
provided many of the bravest soldiers who ever fought in the his- 
tory of the world. After secession was determined upon, they 
were true and loyal to their commonwealth, as was Lee, and as 
Charles Francis Adams, of Massachusetts, said he would have done 
in a similar situation, in his speech at the one hundredth anniversary 
of that great soldier's birth, delivered at Lexington, in 1906. Though 
opposed to the secession of the South, they were loyal to their 
State, and their glory is none the less because they were so. And 
they are just as loyal to that Union to-day as those who took the 
opposite position and remained loyal throughout. Each had the 
right to hold and stand for his opinion. 

The war times for four years were distressing to the people. 
The men were in the army, and the women and children had to 
raise the crops and provide raiment and maintenance, being in per- 
petual fear of the scouts, bushwhackers and guerrillas, more than 
the regular armies. They manufactured all their clothing from 
wool and flax ; carried salt on horseback from Mercer Salt Works ; 
wove wearing apparel from flax ; wore "tow" suits and dresses 
woven and spun on the old-fashioned wheel and loom ; manufac- 
tured all their sugar, and hid their grain, cattle, horses and house- 
hold goods in the mountains, to prevent their being carried away. 
The women and children made, with their own hands, their support 
for four years, and aided for years after in the labor of recupera- 
tion, living in constant and incessant fear during all this period. 

Up to the beginning of the war there was an organized militia 
in each county, and they mustered and practiced soldiery once a 
month, meeting at a public place in the neighborhood. 

There was a company of scouts or guerrillas connected with the 
Federal Army during the war, known as Blazer's Company, which 
made frequent incursions into the lower end of this county during 
the Civil War. A man by the name- of Blazer, from Gallipolis, 
Ohio, was the captain. This company was the terror of the Lick 
Creek region of country, and Captain Blazer was a cruel, relentless 
soldier, not disposed to ameliorate the necessary hardships always 
incident to war. On one of these raids into the "Lick Creek coun- 
try, his men surrounded the house of William Holcomb, who lived 
just below Hutchinson's Mill, in the property afterwards acquired 
by the late Dr. N. W. Noel. Holcomb belonged to the Confederate 
Army, and had come home the evening before on a furlough, to 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



207 



• visit his family. He was arrested in bed and taken from his house, 
in the presence of his family, and was shot in the neck by orders 
of the commander, and without provocation, except that he was a 
Confederate soldier. The first shot not killing him, he was taken 
a few hundred yards down the road to the dwelling house of Zech- 
ariah Wood, and there shot in the back and killed, no pleadings 
or supplications of his helpless wife making any impression on the 
raiders and merciless men. Mr. Holcomb's widow survived him, 
and resided in that country for many years after the war. She 
was a Hix, a well-known family of that community— daughter of 
Wm. Hix. 

Blazer's company, on another raid into the Mill Creek neighbor- 
hood of Green Sulphur District, met a squad of Thurmond's men 
on the creek, who were temporarily encamped at the residence of 
the Widow Crotty, at the Long Bridge, about a mile below Hutch- 
inson's Mill, when a skirmish ensued. Xeither party expected the 
other; neither party whipping the other. Green Rodes, a member 
of Captain Wm. Thurmond's company, was dangerously wounded; 
M. Gwinn had his belt shot in twain at the waist ; but no one was 
killed. Blazer and his men escaped. 

It was reported that one "Yankee" was killed at the bridge, 
and for years it was understood that that place was "haunted," 
and boys, as well as grown people, were fearful to go along that 
road after night. J. Houston Miller, a son of Captain A. A. Mil- 
ler, now residing in Texas, being of a venturesome disposition, 
accepted a wager that he would not remain at that bridge the whole 
of one night on account of ghosts, which were reported to frequent 
this spot. Miller accepted the wager, went to the bridge, and re- 
mained there from dark to daylight in order to show his pluck, 
which required a good deal of stamina for a boy of his size and 
age to remain, as a lone sentinel in a pine forest and on a lonely 
road, through the entire dark hours of a dark night, when ghosts 
were holding nightly, as well as knightly, revels. J. Houston Mil- 
ler is now president of the Watahachie National Bank, of Texas. 

Another raid was made by Blazer into the Lick Creek country, 
going as far up the main creek as Wm. E. Miller's house, from 
which they carried all the sugar, flour, meal, bacon and substance 
the family had accumulated for subsistence, and shot at a boy, 
Jehu McNeer, a son of James McNeer, deceased, who was on a 
ridge in the woods, but missed him. They carried all the plunder 
they could find along the creek to Gwinn's storehouse, at Green 
Sulphur, where they heard Thurmond's Rangers were after them. 



208 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

whereupon they unloaded themselves of their plunder and "ske- 
daddled'' out of the country, and the people thus regained their 
property. 

THE DEATH OF ALLEN WOODRUM. 

One of the interesting reminiscences and true accounts of valor 
and heroism is related by the old comrades of Allen Woodrum, 
who was killed at Cold Harbor, in 1864. He was a member of 
Edgar's Battalion, and some account of his death is related in 
other pages. He was a member of Company D and its color- 
bearer. He was born and raised on Wolf Creek, then Monroe, but 
now Summers. Colonel George M. Edgar, the gallant commander 
of the famous Edgar's Battalion, relates that on the morning of the 
2d of June, 1864, at the second Battle of Cold Harbor, that part of 
Lee's line held by this line was desperately charged by the Fed- 
eral Army. The carnage was dradful. The Battle of the Wilder- 
ness had just preceded, and those awful days were telling upon the 
Army of Northern Virginia. The soldiers on both sides were as 
dauntless and devoted as the armies which followed Napoleon at 
Austerlitz, Wagram and Lodi. The Confederate lines had been 
thinned, and it was not possible for Edgar to concentrate upon the 
charging Federals a fire sufficiently strong to repulse them before 
they reached the breastworks. The Federals struck the intrench- 
ments, and the conflict became a hand-to-hand affair. The Feder- 
als swept over and seemed to engulf the few defenders, and a num- 
ber of Confederates were taken prisoners, among them Colonel 
Edgar himself, who had received a bayonet wound in the shoul- 
der; but before this, as related by him, he saw Allen Woodrum 
fighting desperately with the Federals on the breastworks above 
him, thrusting at them with the sharp lance point of the staff of 
his flag. In a few moments, just as the Federal line surged over 
the Confederates' defense, Woodrum was pierced by several bul- 
lets, having thrust, however, as he fell, the point of his flag-staff 
clean through the body of one of his assailants, thus giving him 
a mortal blow. Woodrum, as he fell, tore from the staff his battle- 
flag, and attempted to thrust it beneath his clothing, out of sight; 
then falling, in death he lay upon it, interposing his body between 
it and his enemies. In a few moments a counter-charge of the 
Confederates repulsed the Federals, driving them back with heavy 
slaughter to their own lines, and recapturing most of the Confed- 
erates who had a few moments before been taken prisoners, among 
those recaptured being Colonel Edgar himself. Later Allen Wood- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 209 

rum was found lying in the intrenchments dead, but even in death 
still protecting his flag, which was hidden beneath him. Faithful 
was he until death — a modest, big-hearted country boy, who lived 
and died a hero. General Gordon was deeply moved by this inci- 
dent. 

This is the account as given by Colonel Edgar; but the Feder- 
als claimed to have secured the flag from Woodrum after he fell, 
and to have preserved it among their trophies. 

Allen Woodrum was a brother of the late W. C. Woodrum, of 
Forest Hill; of Phil. Woodrum, now living at Foss, and of Richard 
M. Woodrum, the merchant at Wiggins. 

W. C. Woodrum was also a brave soldier, serving in Company 
T, under Captain Morton, Edgar's Battalion. He was also a 
nephew of Major Richard Woodrum and a cousin of Charles L. 
Woodrum, the enterprising engineer, farmer and school teacher of 
Wolf Creek; and John Woodrum, the other son of Major Wood- 
rum — a soldier of the Spanish-American War — ^now resides in Avis. 

Another incident of the heroism of a son of Summers County 
in that war is told of Peter M. Skaggs, now a shoemaker of Hinton, 
and who lived for many years in the upper end of Forest Hill Dis- 
trict. Skaggs, in an attack upon the Union forces, became so en- 
thusiastic that he abandoned his command, rushing on in front 
some ten paces. Reaching the guns of the Federals, he mounted 
on top of a cannon, placed himself astride of the same, and hallowed 
to the boys to come on ; that he had his gun and intended to 
hold it. 

Another incident of the heroism of another son of Summers 
was that of Captain Robert Gore, who alone captured one hundred 
Federal soldiers on the field of Gettysburg, which is recited in an- 
other section of this book, and the story is authentic history, and 
was detailed to the writer by Mr. William Brown, a most truthful 
and reliable citizen, now living in Pipestem District, who was pres- 
ent in person and saw the daring enterprise successfully carried 
out with his own eyes, and it is from his own lips that the incident 
is recited as authentic history. 

There is one other truthful incident we mention, that of the 
capture by M. M. Warren and his brother, W. W. Warren, of 
Riffe's Crossing and Jumping Branch, of the famous Federal spy, 
near the Greenbrier County line, during the war. These two 
soldiers were mere boys, and had stopped late in the evening to 
stay all night with their aunt. Later this spy called to secure lodg- 
ing with this widow, who was noted for her generosity and kind- 



210 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

ness to all people. He claimed to be on a search for laborers to 
work in the saltpeter mines, for the purpose of securing material 
to manufacture powder for the Southern Confederacy. These boys 
pretended that they would like to join him, but when he retired 
to bed that night, they stood guard at the foot of the stairs all 
night. In the morning they pretended to have agreed to go with 
him, and when they had gone some distance, he not being able to 
shake them off, suddenly seemed to arrive at the -determination to 
return to the house and secure a large bowie-knife which he 
claimed to have left under his pillow. They proposed to return 
with him against his desires, as he directed that they proceed and 
he would overtake them. This they declined to do, and when they 
had arrived at the yard fence, he suddenly attacked them, and a 
desperate fight ensued. The ground being covered several inches 
with snow, the gun of one of the brothers fell into the snow, and 
the other brother could not shoot, as the spy kept one of the broth- 
ers at all times between him and the other. Finally, by sticking 
the muzzle of the gun into his face, he was subdued, thrown to the 
ground, and his hands tied behind him. No bowie-knife was to be 
discovered, and it was only a ruse to escape. They carried him 
before their commander, on Monroe draft, where he was ques- 
tioned and finally sent on to Richmond, but before his arrival he 
jumped from the train and made his escape, and he was never re- 
captured. 

Lack of space prevents the detailing of many other interesting 
incidents of this character on our soil. The incidents detailed are 
only a few of the many recited to the writer by brave soldiers of 
both armies from this region, whose tales of war are more inter- 
esting than those of which we read concerning the great battles 
of the greatest warriors of Europe. 

SOLDIERS. 

The territory of Summers County, though sparsely populated 
in 1861, furnished a number of the brave soldiers who fought in 
the Confederate ranks, and a number also who fought for the main- 
tenance of the Union. These Confederate soldiers from this re- 
gion were generally violently opposed to the secession of the 
States ; were usually Democrats of the old school, that held to the 
ideals of a self-balanced and self-governed State, where every man 
stands erect in the fullness of his rights and in the pride of his 
manhood, neither cringing nor overbearing, owing no allegiance 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



211 



but to duty, claiming none but from the heart, fulfilling every ser- 
vice, and exercising every right of a citizen ; a government founded 
not on the traditions of remote ages, nor of usurpations, nor of 
conquests, but on things older and firmer than all — the equality 
and brotherhood of man. The lists I am able to give are not per- 
fect, but are as near so as I am able to make them more than forty 
years after the termination of that great war. No soldier of the 
South from the territory of Summers County ever went to jail for 
theft. 

Confederate soldiers in Talcott District: 
W. W. Jones, Co. B, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 
John B. Thompson, Co. H, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 
T. C. Maddy, Co. F, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 

C. R. Crawford, Co. F, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 
T. J. Holstine, Co. F, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 
Wilk Meadows, Co. F, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 
Calvin Meadows, Co. F, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 
Mason Altair, Co. B, 26th Virginia, Battalion, Edgars. 

A. P. Lowry, Co. B, 26th Virginia, Battalion, near the close of 
the war. 

E. D. Alderson, Co. Lowry's Battery. 
W. C. Hedrick, Co. Lowry's Battery. 
A. P. Pence, Co. Lowry's Battery. 
John C. Mann, Co. Chapman's Battery. 
James Kirby, Co. Chapman's Battery. 
John Coiner, Co. Chapman's Battery. 

A. J. Wallace, connected with no company; on detailed service. 

J. C. Burnes, Co. C, 17th Virginia Cavalry. 

H. J. Davis, Co. G, 23d Virginia Battalion. 

James Cooper, Co. H, 60th Virginia Regiment. 

A. C. Kesler, Thurmond's Company. 

J. B. Hedrick, Thurmond's Company. 

Wallace Keller, Thurmond's Company. 

George Keller, Thurmond's Company. 

Lewis B. Meadows, Thurmond's Company. 

M. M. Warren, Thurmond's Company. 

Joseph Huffman, Thurmond's Company, and afterwards cap- 
tain of his company. 

D. D. Rhodes, Thurmond's Company. 



212 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



E. P. Huston, Co. A, 62d Virginia Regiment. 
Win G. McCorkie, Co. A, 22d Virginia Regiment. 
David Washington, Co. D, 51st Virginia Regiment. 

A. J. Blake, Co. A, Virginia ( McCausland's) Regiment. 

J. A. Houchins, Co. I, 50th Virginia Regiment. 
Thomas Shoemaker, Co. G, 17th Virginia Cavalry (Jenkins'). 
David W. Leftwich, Vawter's Co., Clark's Battalion. 
Conrad B. Pack, Co. A, 60th Virginia Regiment; now dead; 
died in Kansas. 

Samuel D. Pack, Co. H, 27th Virginia Cavalry; died in Kansas. 

John A. Pack, Co. H, 27th Virginia Cavalry; lives in Oklahoma. 

Allen C. Pack, Co. A, 60th Virginia ; lives now in Kansas. 

These Packs were sons of Anderson Pack, and born and raised 
on New River. Their grandfather was Captain Mat. Farley, a 
scout in General George Washington's Army. 



Confederate soldier's of Jumping Branch District: 

J. E. C. L. Hatcher, 23d Va. Cav., Breckingbridge's Div. 
Jack Vest, 23d Va. Cav., Breckingbridge's Div. 
Josiah Lilly, 23d Va. Cav., Breckingbridge's Div. 
John W. Move, 23d Va. Cav., Breckingbridge's Div. 
Mathew Adkins, 23d Va. Cav., Breckingbridge's Div. 
R. W. Lilly, Sr., 23d Va. Cav., Breckingbridge's Div. 
Joshua Harvey, Capt. George, Gen. McCausland's Div. 
Wm. Basham, Capt. George, Gen. McCausland's Div. 
Isaac Mann, Capt. George, Gen. McCausland's Div. 
Austin Harvey, Capt. George, Gen. McCausland's Div. 
J. Calvin Harvey, Capt. George, Gen. McCausland's Div. 
Ab. Birchfield, Thurmond's Rangers. 
John Hinton, Sr., Thurmond's Rangers. 
John W^ayne HintOn, Thurmond's Rangers. 
Wm. Hinton, Jr., Thurmond's Rangers. 

Capt. White G. Ryan, James W. Pack, Wm. Hinton. Wm. Lilly 
("One-arm Bill"), Joseph Lilly, Mathew A. Hedrick, M. A. W. 
Young, Allen H. Meador, Geo. W. Plumley, Simeon Lilly, Louis 
Lilly, Andy Lewis Lilly, Granville C. Lowe, Thomas E. Ball, Levi 
M. Neely, Sr., Wm. T. Meador, J. J. Charlton. 

White G. Ryan, Captain of Co. I, 60th Virginia. 

Thos. E. Ball, wounded. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 213 

Confederate soldiers of Pipestem District : 

E. V. Neely, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Va. Inft., Harton's Div. 
R. Hopkin's, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
Joel Farley.. Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Va. Inft., Harton's Div. 
J. R. Farley, Co. I, Smith's Br.. 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
Crawford Wood, Co. I, Smith's Br. 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
Squire Meador, Co. I, Smith's Br. 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
Ballard Houchins, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's 
Div. 

J. J. Yest, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Va. Inft., Harton's Div. 
A. P. Farley, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Ya. Inft.. Harton's Div. 
J. W. Ryan, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Va. Inft., Harton's Div. 
John Petry, Co. I. Smith's Br.. 60th Va. Inft., Harton's Div. 
John Anderson, Co. I, Smith's Br.. 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
A. T. Clark, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
James Clark. Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
AY. R. Neely, Co. I, Smith's Br., 60th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
A. G. P. Farley, Co. B, Echols' Br., 23d Ya. Batl. Inft. 
H. C. Farley, Co. B, Echols' Br., 23d Ya. Inft. 
M. Cook, Co. B, Echols' Br., 23d Va. Inft. 
J. A. Martin, Co. B, Echols' Br„ 23d Ya. Inft. 
R. A. Wood, Co. B. Echols' Br., 23d Ya. Inft. 
J. A. Williams, Co. H, Smith's Br., 36th Ya. Inft., Harton's Div. 
Ben Becket, Co. H, Marshall's Br., 4th Ya. Inft. 
Jackson Farley, 17th Ya. Cav., McCausland's Br. 
A. J. Williams, 17th Ya. Cav., McCausland's Br. 
S. D. Hopkins, 17th Ya. Cav., McCausland's Br. 
W. C. Keaton, 17th Va. Cav.. McCausland's Br. • 
J. D. Anderson, 17th Ya. Cav., McCausland's Br. 
Wm. Brown, 17th Ya. Cav., McCausland's Br. 
J. F. Wood, 17th Ya. Cav.. McCausland's Br. 
Jas. Butler. 17th Ya. Cav.. McCausland's Br. 
J. R. Newkirk, 17th Ya. Cav., McCausland's Br. 
S. A. Meador and A. G. Lilly belonged to Jonathan Lilly's Co., 
and John Dore was wagoner. 

Robert Gore, Capt. Co. D, 17th Ya. Cav. 

Gordon L. Wilburn was a member of McComas' Battery, from 
Giles County. He was for many years a citizen of Pipestem, and 
now resides at Beckley, in Raleigh County. 



214 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Confederate soldiers of Greenbrier District: 

M. N. Breen, gunner; J. M. Ayres, Wm. M. Cottle, Carl A. 
Fredeking, Joseph Hinton, W. D. Thurmond's Co., Echols' Brig- 
ade; Wm. Hinton, W. D. Thurmond's Co., Echols' Brigade; Thos. 
W. Townsley, C. P. Browning, Samuel Pack (son of Wm.), Evi 
Ballengee, Dr. Wm. L. Barksdale, B. B. Burks, Lafayette Ballen- 
gee, Wm. Hinton, Sr., Erastus H. Peck, Henderson Garten, Andy 
Bennett, Parker J. Bennett, John F. George, John M. Carden, James 
W. Miller, R. T. Dolin. 

"Jack" Hinton, the founder of the family in this county, was 
before the war a captain of the Monroe Guards, and Eber Willey 
was first lieutenant. 

Thomas Mustain, Co. I, 60th Virginia. 

Wm. Mustain, Co. I, 60th Virginia. 

Confederate soldiers of Green Sulphur District: 

John Cox was one of the brave men who received a saber wound 
in the head in the Battle of the Wilderness ; captured and sent on 
to Fort Delaware as a prisoner of war. 

James Walker, Co. B, 60th Va. Regiment, was a corporal of his 
company, and a son of Joel Walker. 

William Duncan, a son of Nathan L. Duncan, Co. B, 60th Va. 
Regiment, died of fever on being brought home from Monroe draft 
by his father. 

Marion Fink, son of Joseph Fink, also died of fever, being 
brought home by his father from Monroe draft, Co. B, 60th Va. 
Regiment. • 

James Sedley Duncan, Co. B, 60th Va., under Captain Baxter, 
fought under Generals Hill and Pemberton ; was guard of General 
R. E. Lee's headquarters on Sewell Mountain and at other points ; 
was shot through the shoulder, and, after lying two months in the 
hospital, started for home. He was wounded at Gaine's Farm, in 
the Seven Days' Fight. It took him thirteen days to reach home 
from Richmond. 

John L. Duncan was in Co. B, 60th Va. Regiment, and later 
with Thurmond's Rangers. 

Nathan A. Duncan was a son of Charles Duncan; first eighteen 
months in Co. B, 60th Va. Regiment, and later first lieutenant in 
Phil. Thurmond's Rangers. 

John Hunter Duncan, son of John Duncan; Phil. Thurmond's 
Rangers. 




WHERE ULRICH SWOPE KID IN A POPLAR 
TREE FROM INDIANS. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 215 



Andrew Hix, 60th Va., and later Edgar's Battalion ; badly 
wounded at Battle of Lewisburg. 

Henry Logan Miller, son of Ervin Miller, Co. B, 60th Va. Regi- 
ment, died at Brook Church from fever. 

Sam Henry Fox, Phil. Thurmond's Rangers and 60th Va. 

Perry Fox, Thurmond's Co., died a prisoner of war in Camp 
Chase. 

Joseph Martin, son of Shadrach Martin, in Co. K, 22d Va. Regi- 
ment, was shot at Cedar Creek ; bomb exploded, and a piece struck 
him on the left side of thejace. He still lives on his farm in Green 
Sulphur District. He was shot on the 19th of October, 1864. 

Daniel L. Keeler, in Lowry's Battery ; now lives on Laurel 
Creek, in Green Sulphur District. 

Harrison Gwinn, Co. B, 26th Va. Regiment, Edgar's Battalion. 

Augustus Gwinn, Thurmond's Rangers. 

M. Gwinn, Thurmond's Rangers. 

William E. Miller, James W. Miller, John A. Miller, Thurmond's 
Rangers. 

Logan Miller, 26th Va. Regiment. 
Charles R. Fox, Thurmond's Rangers. 
John L. Duncan, Thurmond's Rangers. 
James M. Hix, Thurmond's Rangers. 
James H. Martin, Thurmond's Rangers. 
Irvin Bowles, Thurmond's Rangers. 
Andrew A. Foster, Thurmond's Rangers. 
John K. Withrow, Thurmond's Rangers. 
Michael Hix, Thurmond's Rangers. 
Thos. D. Lusher, Thurmond's Rangers. 
John Ellis, Thurmond's Rangers. 

John L. Duncan ("Curly Jim"), Thurmond's Rangers. 
John H. Dunbar, Thurmond's Rangers. 
Samuel Gwinn, Thurmond's Rangers. 

Jas. S. Duncan, 22d Va. Regiment, Col. Patton, commanding. 
Perry Fox, died a prisoner of war in Camp Chase, Ohio. Thomas 
Fox is a son of Perry Fox, and resides on Lick Creek. 
Joseph Martin, 2d Va. Regiment, shot wound. 
J. S. Hite, under General Floyd. 

Thomas A. George and John A. George, Edgar's Battalion. 

Peter Maddy, who died in the army at Union. 

William Patterson died a prisoner of war in Camp Chase, Ohio, 
during the Civil War. Before his death and during his last illness 
in the war prison, he executed His last will within the prison walls. 



216 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The witnesses to that will were George W. Wetsel, another Con- 
federate soldier from Lewisburg, who died a few years ago at Gau- 
ley Bridge, having married a daughter of Colonel Muncie, an old 
sheriff of that county, and Hon. Benj. F. Harlow, the founder and 
veteran editor of the Greenbrier "Independent." This will was, 
after the war, admitted to probate in Greenbrier County and proven 
by these witnesses. William Patterson, by this will, devised his in- 
terest in the lands on the waters of Meadow River and Slater's 
Fork of Lick Creek, at the top of Patterson's Mountain. He left a 
family of very small children, who grew to maturity on this farm. 
A. G. Patterson, who still owns the Patterson plantation at the 
foot of this mountain on the Meadow side, and a very intelligent 
citizen, resides thereon. 



Confederate soldiers of Forest Hill District: 

Lewis A. Ellison, Co. A, 60th Va. Regiment. 
S. T. Shumate, Co. A, 60th Va. Regiment. 
W. M. Foster, Co. A, 60th Va. Regiment. 
G. C. Meadows, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
E. H. Michel, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
James M. Allen, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
J. R. Webb, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
Thos. G. Lowe, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
Jos. J. Christian, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
Thos. Frazier, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
Harvey Young, Co. F, Edgar's Battalion. 
M. M. Meadows, Co. C, Edgar's Battalion. 
B. F. W^esley, Co. C, 45th Va. Regiment. 
J. D. Martin, Co. G, 51st Va. Regiment. 
R. S. Rudd, Mosby's Command. 
Hugh M. Hill, 28th Va., Pickett's Div. 
Ferdinand Hoback, Co. G, 21st Va. Cavalry. 
Wm. L. Redmond, 17th Va. Cavalry. 
Richard Mowry, 17th Va. Cavalry. 
John Roles, Co. C, 36th Va. Regiment. 
Stephen Davidson, 22d Va. Regiment. 
A. P. Bonham, Co. D, 30th Va. Battalion. 
G. B. Mann, Co. D, 30th Va. Battalion. 
A. Newton Mann, Co. D, 30th Va. Battalion. 
A. F. Brown, Thurmond's Rangers. 
Jos. N. Haynes, Thurmond's Rangers. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 217 



Richard McNeer, Lowry's Battery. 

E. C. Woodson, Lowry's Battery. 

Henry Smith, Lowry's Battery. 

A. M. Hutchinson, Lowry's Battery. 

I. G. Carden, Lowry's Battery. 

Richard Woodrum, Major in Edgar's Battalion. 

Elbert Fowler, Va. Cavalry. 

John M. Carden, Lowry's Battery. 

Allen A. Carden, Lowry's Battery. 

Dr. Thomas Bray, who died at Talcott in 1880, was in Co. F, 
59th Va. Regiment, from Mercer County. 

M. A. Manning, who died at Talcott in 1901, was a soldier 
throughout the war in a company from Nicholas County. 

These lists of the soldiers from Summers County are practically 
correct, of those living; but there is no doubt a number of those 
dead whose names we have not been able to secure. A complete 
list of all soldiers from the territory of the county is now being se- 
cured by Camp Allen Woodrum, for preservation to posterity. 

CONFEDERATE CAMP. 

A movement for the organization of a camp of Sons of Confed- 
erate Veterans was started in October, 1907, in Summers County, 
and is in the hands of C. L. Miller. 

A. D. Smith, Jr., of Fayetteville, is the commandant for his sec- 
tion; Mr. Miller has the matter in charge. This is a worthy 
movement, and will be taken hold of with enthusiasm by the 
younger generation. 

In 1907 steps are being taken to organize a camp of Confeder- 
ate Veterans in Hinton, Summers County, to be named "Camp 
Allen Woodrum," for that humble but gallant and patriotic sol- 
dier, Allen Woodrum, who so gloriously fought and died for a 
"lost cause." He was a native of our soil, and his memory should 
always be green and his name remembered by future generations 
for his greatness, bravery and heroism. The children of future gen- 
erations should be taught to revere his heroic, honorable though 
humble career. 

This movement was put on foot by that patriotic citizen who 
was a corporal in Thurmond's Rangers, Hon. M. M. Warren. The 
first and preliminary meeting was held at the court house on the 
7th day of October, 1907, on a call published by Mr. Warren in the 



218 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



"Independent Herald" newspaper. About fifty of the old veterans 
met and perfected a temporary organization, with Andrew P. Pence 
as chairman. They adjourned to meet again on the 21st of Octo- 
ber, to perfect the camp and elect officers." 

FEDERAL SOLDIERS. 

Robert Atkins was a member of Co. G, 2d Regiment, West Vir- 
ginia Cavalry, and was under the command of Captain Joseph 
Ankrum, the chivalrous army officer of Fayetteville. He was shot 
in the right shoulder and his eye put out by the explosion of a 
caisson in a fight at Dinwiddie Court House. Some time after the 
war he undertook to secure a pension, which required him about 
ten years to accomplish. When he did succeed, he drew fifteen 
hundred dollars. 

Eber Willey was a member of Co. G, 2d West Virginia Cav- 
alry, and was present at the battle when Robert Atkins was shot 
and wounded. When the gun fell from Atkins' hands, it was picked 
up by Mr. Willey. 

William Crook was a member of the 9th Va. Infantry. 

Creed Meadows was also a member of Co. G, 2d W. Va. Cav- 
alry. 

David Harris was a member of Co. G, 2d W. Va. Cavalry. 

Pleasant Lilly, 2d W. Va. Cavalry. 

Thomas F. Ratliff, Co. G, 6th W. Va. Cavalry. 

Isaac Siers was at one time a member of this same company, 
but deserted and joined the rebels. 

William Meadows was a member of the same company; also 
John Lane. 

R. H. Maxwell, 11th W. Va. Infantry, General Crook. 
J. A. Maxwell, 11th W. Va. Infantry, General Crook. 
Green Wadle, 11th W. Va. Infantry, General Crook. 
John Upton, 11th W. Va. Infantry, General Crook. 
James Upton, 11th W. Va. Infantry, General Crook. 
Peter Cales, Co. H, 7th W. Va. Cavalry. 
James Cales, Co. H, 7th W. Va. Cavalry. 
John Rudisill, Co. H, 7th W. Va. Cavalry. 
James Beasley, Co. H, 7th W. Va. Cavalry. 
Alma Willey, Co. F, 91st Ohio Infantry. 
John Dawson, Co. F, 91st Ohio Infantry. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



219 



SOLDIERS IN THE SPANISH-AMERICAN WAR FROM 
SUMMERS COUNTY. 

Co. C, First Brigade, Second Division, Second Army Corps : 

Captain — E. F. Smith. 
First Lieutenant — James R. Dolan. 
First Sergeant — Charles A. Price. 
Quartermaster Sergeant — Charles W. Parr. 
Sergeant — Richard A. Dameron. 
Corporal — Malcolm R. Price. 

Alfred C. Atkins was company cook. William L. Barksdale, 
John Henry Field, Robert M. OrmdorfT, Charles F. Heyes, Edward 
G. Dameron, H. B. Campbell. 

Artificer — James Garten. 

Wagoner — William E. Lynch. 

Company Clerk — John B. Gayer. 

Thomas M. Harrington. Samuel B. Bazarea, James W. Burger, 
John H. Caldwell, [Marvin H. Chambers, Peter B. DeLung, James 
J. Eary, Geo. Gast, John C. Huddleston, Dexter W. Keadle, Samuel 
W. Meador, Alfred F. [Meadows, John S. Meadows, Alfred M. 
Moore, Jas. J. Roach, Samuel Snuff, Jr., Bert T. Snead, Edgar 
Thomas, Luke Tigret, Ras Turner, Garrett G. Wise, Henry D. 
Wise. 

This company was organized at Hinton and mustered into the 
United States service at Camp Atkinson, Charleston, West Vir- 
ginia, June 29, 1898. We give the names of only those men and 
officers who were from this county. Others soldiers from the county 
in other companies and commands were Cyrus C. Hobbs, William 
Fisher, Cleve Prince, Jack Stover, Harrison Lawrence. These were 
in the First Regiment. 

Other soldiers in the Spanish-American War from this county 
were: Chas. B. Armstrong, a son of Riley Armstrong; William 
Fisher, Harry Lawrence. They were all members of the same 
company with Sergeant Hobbs, Compan}^ A, First Regiment. 

After the war, when the Southern soldier surrendered and ac- 
cepted the result in good faith, came the times which "tried men's 
souls," the days of "radical carpet bag government," extending 
from the surrender of the Confederate Armies in 1865 to 1870, when 
the carpet bagger's rule was overthrown, and the owners of the 



220 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



soil and freemen began to hold up their heads and again see liberty 
and equality before the law. The night hawks and political buz- 
zards who had come forth upon the disfranchisement of the "rebel" 
soldier, the Southern sympathizer, and all who had aided or abetted 
the Southern soldier, or those in sympathy with the cause of the 
South, like those beasts of prey who take to the forest during the 
day and prey during the dark hours of the night. This dissolute 
period was during the reconstruction times immediately following 
the war. Much the largest part of the territory of the country 
was in sympathy with the South, but there were numbers of our 
citizens who remained loyal to the Union throughout the w T ar, and 
some of them fought in its armies, and they were of the truest and 
most loyal blood of the land. This condition was not brought 
about by the character of conditions existing. There was another 
set who were pretended loyalists to the Union cause who used their 
loyalty as a shield for marauding and invading the homes and 
property of private citizens and despoiling them. They were gen- 
erally men who had no prominence, influence or property before 
the war. They had not the courage of loyal soldiers who fight in 
honest war and battle, but who skulk, bushwhack, remaining inde- 
pendent of army organizations, and men and women and children 
lived in daily fear of them. 

AVhen the war closed, and after the great soldier and patriot, 
General Grant, had said, "Let vis have peace," the affairs were 
placed in the hands of the dissolute and ignorant, bigoted and radi- 
cal. A board of registration for each county was instituted, as well 
as a Board of Supervisors. These grafters' principal purpose was 
to keep themselves in power. Seventy-five per cent, of the people 
being disfranchised and decitizenized ; the courts were not fair, and 
civil liberty was a farce. The proscribed could not bring a law 
suit, collect an honest and undenied debt, serve on a jury, practice 
a profession, teach school — nothing near fair except the air outside 
of the temple of justice, water, payment of taxes and death. The 
good and conservative men who were loyal could not get an appoint- 
ment to office. There were so few who could get office that were 
qualified that it became necessary to give two or three offices to 
one man ; in some instances one man would hold as many as five 
offices. This condition brought to the community swarms of vaga- 
bond lawyers from the North, who had no occupation at home, as 
those lawyers who had Southern sympathies could not practice 
their profession without taking the test oath. A large number of 
these office-holders could not read and write, being ignorant and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 221 

bigoted. Ignorance and bigotry disqualifies any man for a position 
of trust or honor. There were some attorneys yet -that could prac- 
tice — Hon. Frank Hereford, Judge Gillespie and James H. McGin- 
nis, who aided in the overthrow of this saturnalia of debauchery, 
which will never exist again, and its like will never be known in 
this land. Its overthrow is due, not to Democrats alone, but to the 
patriotic citizens of both parties. 

Only such as were permitted to vote could hold office, and there 
were so few that could read and write that frequently one man 
held from three to five offices. By reason of the obnoxious regis- 
tration laws growing out of these conditions, when the Constitu- 
tional Convention met in 1870 to enact a new Constitution, a clause 
was inserted providing that no registration laws should ever be 
enacted. 

The lawyer's test oath and the teacher's test oath, the suitor's 
test oath and the voter's test' oath all followed. The lawyers of 
the counties in whom the people had confidence, and in whom the 
people were willing to trust their lives, liberty and property and 
honor were not permitted to practice. Col. James W. Davis, of 
Greenbrier, was an exception. He went into the war a radical 
"secesh," and was wounded in battle. He persuaded the Legisla- 
ture that he was not such a dangerous "Confed.," and therefore it 
passed a special act removing his disabilities. 

No one could vote unless he was registered. Registrars were 
selected who would register no one who would not vote to sustain 
the existing conditions, and these corrupt registrars were sustained 
by Judge Harrison. 

A party desiring to win his cause in his court would walk up 
on the bench, slip into his "itching palm'' a gold or other coin, and 
that invariably won his case. It has been said that he would sit 
on the bench by the side of a jug of whiskey. 

Joel McPherson was elected clerk in Greenbrier County. He 
was not of the Harrison kelter. The time came for him to qualify. 
There was no question of his election ; it was not contested or con- 
troverted. He was a man of powerful physique, and when Harrison 
refused to permit him to qualify in open court, he walked up behind 
the judge's desk, took him in his arms and started to pitch him out 
of the window, which was twenty or thirty feet from the ground : 
then the judge consented to permit Mr. McPherson to qualify, and 
he held the office for many years. 

The better and more conservative of the dominant party then in 
power — the Republican party — became disgusted, and fell in with 



222 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



their neighbors, and eventually conditions righted themselves. The 
conditions existing in the counties of which Summers was formed 
existed very generally in other counties and sections, where there 
was a strong Confederate sentiment. 

Harrison would get his ill-gotten accumulations together after 
a term of court, go to Washington, or some other city, and dissipate 
it between terms ; then return, hold a term of court, and replenish 
his depleted treasury. His wife, who was a most estimable lady, 
abandoned him. Being forced to resign his office ; being loathed 
by all honest and decent people — as much so as the infamous and 
cruel Jeffries — he abandoned his country, emigrated to Denver, 
Colorado, and died several years ago. When seen in Denver a few 
years after he left this country, he presented the appearance of a 
run-down, ragged and abandoned man. Shunned by his fellowmen, 
he died, disappointed and in poverty, an example to the future. 

An instance of the actions of these registrars may be of interest 
to future generations. When seventy-five per cent, of the people 
were proscribed and disfranchised by this obnoxious amended Con- 
stitution and laws placed on the statute books, and by which honest 
people could not collect their debts, teach school, etc., these laws 
were rigidly enforced for five years, when they were thrown off 
by the liberal and honest people of the land, Republicans and 
Democrats. 

This board of registration was appointed by the Governor, con- 
sisting of three members, removable by him when he saw fit. Its 
powers were equal to that of the Spanish Inquisition, says Judge 
David E. Johnson ; they had power to send for persons and papers 
— to say who should vote and who should not. They could erase 
any and all names that he did not consider loyal to the gang and 
vote to perpetuate them in power by a stroke of his pen (that is, 
such of these registrars as could write), or they would place on the 
list such names as he wished, and in this the law protected them, 
too, they being exempt by law from prosecution or by civil suits. 
These registrars reported to the district registrars, and there was 
where the greater shame and outrage was perpetrated. They were 
usually foul birds, the most unclean that could be found. Any man 
who would promise to vote the Republican ticket, or for a selected 
candidate, could get his name retained on the lists as a voter. 

If a party was suspected of not being loyal and voting right, he 
was summoned before this board to prove his loyalty to his party. 
No charges were proven, none preferred, but he must prove his 
innocence — that is, that he was true to the Republican party, and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 223 



still intended to vote for it. If he did not show up satisfactorily, 
his name was scratched off and he was disfranchised. 

A gentleman of the legal profession, being under suspicion of 
disloyalty, was summoned before the county board of registrars to 
show and prove that he was true to the grand old party. Appearing 
before the board, he inquired what it wanted, and, being told that 
he must prove his loyalty, he thereupon became very indignant, 
using some uncouth language, rash and approbrious epithets to- 
wards the board for their baseness and meanness and ignorance. 
When he had finished his speech, one of the members of the board 
raised his spectacles upon his brow, and, lifting his eyes to heaven, 
said, "W ell, sir, I am like the apostle of old. I thank God I am 
what I am," to which the attorney replied, "Yes, and you are thank- 
ful for damned small favors." 

Much credit is everlastingly due to Major James H. McGinnis, 
of Beckley, Hon. Allen T. Caperton, of Union, and Hon. Frank 
Hereford, of the same place, for the services rendered by them to 
this section in protecting the people after the war against these 
piratical policies against human rights and human liberties. 

Mr. Caperton could not practice law, as he was a Confederate, 
but he stood by the old soldiers to the last in their days of trial 
and adversity. When Hon. Marion Gwinn, W T m. E. Miller, J. W. 
Miller, John A. Miller and the men of Lick Creek were all sued 
after the war for trespasses never committed (or, if committed, it 
was before they entered the army), it was Caperton and McGinnis 
who stood by them and saved them from bankruptcy and the poor 
house. 

Many suits of this character were brought before Judge Har- 
rison, and many good and honest men despoiled of their property 
and rights under the guise of law. 

Green F. Meador, of Jumping Branch, as well as M. A. W. 
Young, now of Hinton, were members of Company I, 60th Vir- 
ginia Regiment. C. E. Stevenson, of Madam's Creek, was a lieu- 
tenant in this company and Mr. Young a sergeant. John L. Per- 
singer, of Foss, was the driver of cannons and war material, or 
teamster, in Lowry's Battery. Bob Christian was, during the war, 
a citizen of Pipestem District, and was a member of Company I, 
60th Virginia, and was a very brave private in the infantry service. 
He was wounded at the Seven Days' Fight at Richmond, in 1862, 
fought by Lee on one side and McClellan on the other. In a 
charge with the bayonet made by the Confederates he was wounded 



224 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

five times by the Federals, and as he fell one way his antagonist 
fell the other, and as he fell an attempt was made by the Union 
soldiers to end him by shooting him, but as the attempt was being 
made the Southerners fired, killing his assailant, and thereby sav- 
ing his life. The bravery of Bob Christian will go down in his- 
tory with that of Mike Foster and Allen Woodrum. M. A. W. 
Young was a witness, and took part in this famous bayonet charge. 
A gap was made in the Union ranks, by which his company, com- 
manded then by Captain George, passed through, it being an hour 
after dark. The cry was raised, "Who are you?" Captain George 
replied, "Friends," and told them not to shoot. Discovering the 
predicament they were in, they made their escape back through 
the gap before it closed up, by which they would have been sur- 
rounded. M. A. W. Young was wounded three times, once at Cedar 
Creek, at which he was wounded in the arm ; at Lynchburg he re- 
ceived two wounds, losing the little finger from his left hand, and 
receiving a gunshot wound in the thigh ; but he was never captured. 
He was attended by the surgeon, Dr. Noel, of Lick Creek. Bob 
Christian survived the war, and lived in Pipestem District until his 
death several years afterwards from his wounds. He was a brother 
of our countyman, Joseph J. Christian, now living near Indian Mills, 
and A. J. Christian, a citizen of the county, now temporarily lo- 
cated in Raleigh County; of Eli Christian, and another brother, 
whose name I can not recall, there being five of the brothers in the 
Southern Army. These Christians were descendants of the ancient 
settlers in the Middle New River Valley. 

J. Floyd Young, a brother of M. A. W. Young, was shot di- 
rectly through the head, the ball entering one temple and passing 
out of the other. He is still living to this day near Jumping 
Branch, on the Raleigh side of the county line. He was a member 
of Company A, 17th Virginia Cavalry. 

Company I was first organized and commanded by Captain 
White G. Ryan, and, after his being wounded, by Albert G. P. 
George. Sergeant Young, above referred to, was present at the 
Battle of Cloyd's Mountain, when the brave General Jenkins was 
slain. Ed. Ryan, a son of Captain Ryan, and a brother of Joseph, 
was fighting by the side of Mr. Young, when he was shot in the 
breast and instantly killed. Joseph Ryan, a son of Captain Ryan, 
was a lieutenant in this company, and Erastus C. Stevens was the 
first lieutenant. M. A. W. Young was also in the battles of Cold 
Harbor, Gaines' Mill, Bull Run, or Manassas ; in the famous Valley 
of Virginia campaigns with Stonewall Jackson, and with Loring 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 225 



in the Valley of the Kanawha. He was a Methodist preacher after 
the war for a number of years, and is now a salesman, located in 
Hinton. 

About the time of the close of the war bands of men went 
through the county, gathering up what they called "government 
property." They were nothing more than marauders, and took 
advantage of conditions to invest private property and divest pri- 
vate owners of what little the}^ had left remaining from the depre- 
dations and necessities and conditions of a state of war. One of 
these bands visited the Lick Creek country, and went through the 
Laurel Creek neighborhood, carrying off the horses of A. J. Miller 
and Mr. Foster, who had not been engaged in the war by reason of 
over age. They wore masks or false faces to conceal their iden- 
tity, not only taking the horses, which they claimed belonged to 
the government, but they carried off the clothing, wearing apparel 
and ornaments and jewelry of the ladies, taking off from the house 
of Mr. Alderson everything they could lay their hands on, stuffing 
their pockets full of trinkets, including what eatables they could 
find on the premises. One Hen Atkins wore as many as three 
overcoats, one of which was Mr. Alderson's. After sacking the 
country, they started back to the Big Creek country. In crossing 
the Laurel Creek, Atkins was riding a large horse of A. J. Miller's. 
The creek had become swollen, and, in making the passage, he 
was stripped off his horse, drowned, and found several days after- 
ward in a rack heap down the creek some distance, with the three 
overcoats on and the pockets filled with jewelry and trinkets which 
he had captured. He was dressed in the wedding suit of broad- 
cloth of Mr. Alderson's, which he had secured as contraband of 
war. Squire Jack Buckland had captured Andrew A. Foster, and 
took him on behind him to ride across the swollen creek. The 
horses washed down and washed Foster and Buckland both into 
the swollen stream. Foster managed to get out down the stream 
some distance, and caught Buckland as he was drowning, and 
saved his life, after which they took pity on Foster and discharged 
him. The captured men included John B. Walker, Alderson, Fos- 
ter and Miller, who were all discharged by reason of the waters 
making it inconvenient to carry them farther. After the raids 
these pretended soldiers would meet and divide up the spoils, 
which were taken in the name of the government and as govern- 
ment property. This is only an instance of the conditions existing 
on this border at the close of the Civil War. Squire Buckland was 
a large land owner and was a justice for eight years. 



226 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



SOME PRICES DURING THE WAR. 

Yoke of oxen, $1,000.00; each horse or mule $1,000.00; candles, 
$8.75 per pound; beef, $1.00 a pound; pepper, $3.00 per lb.; axes, 
$12.00 each; salt, per bushel, $35.00; coffee, Rio, $4.00 per lb.; flour, 
$45.00 per bbl. ; pig iron, $350.00 per ton ; lard, $2.75 per lb. ; sole 
leather, $6.00 per lb.; nails, per keg, $100.00; onions, $8.00 per 
bushel; sweet potatoes, $4.00; fresh pork, $2.25 per lb.; cotton cloth, 
per yard, $1.30; Castile, $8.00 per lb.; shoes, $15.00 per pair; soap, 
$1.00 per lb.; sugar, $3.00 per lb.; tea, $8.00 per lb.; tobacco, $3.00; 
duck, $1.50 per yard; whiskey, $10.00 per gal.; wheat, per bushel, 
$7.50; wool, per lb., $8.00; quinine, $56.00 an ounce; sorghum, 
$3.50 per gal. These prices were undertaken to be enforced by a 
statute passed by the Confederate States in 1864. The hardships 
of the soldiers are beyond belief. The Federals fared better than 
the Confederates because their supplies were better. The Federal 
Government had the outside- world to draw from. The Confed- 
eracy had to depend upon home products. The daily rations of the 
Confederate soldier when marching or fighting was a pint of corn- 
meal and one-fourth of a pound of bacon. If camping, in addition 
to this, he would receive a quarter of a pound of sugar, one pint 
of molasses, three-fourths of a pound of black pease, one ounce of 
salt, one-eighth of a pound of soap, and on Christmas Day a charger 
of pine top whiskey, but some days they would start on ten days' 
march with rations which would be used up by the end of the sixth 
day. The general would buy whole fields of corn and let the sol- 
diers- help themselves. On many occasions the daily rations would 
be one ear of corn for one man and three for his horse during the 
day. When the Confederate soldier reached his home after the 
war, he was angry as well as hungry, but he soon banished this 
feeling, and discovered there were victories to be won in peace as 
glorious as any he had participated in as a soldier. 

SOME RESULTS OF WAR. 

The Federal troops killed in battle were 67,059 ; died of wounds, 
43,012 ; died of disease, 199,720. Other casualties, such as accidents, 
etc., and in the Confederate prisons, 4,015. Total, 349,994; Federals 
deserted, 199,105 ; number of Federal troops captured during the 
war, 412,608; Confederate troops captured during the war, 476,169. 
Number of Federal troops paroled on field, 16,431 ; Confederate, 
248,599; number of Federal troops who died in prison, 30,136; Con- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 227 

federate troops dying in prison, 30,153, a difference of only three 
men in at total of 60,309. Aggregate number of soldiers in Federal 
Army and Navy, 2,656,553; in the Confederate States (estimated), 
700,000. There were mustered out of the Federal service in 1865 
186,000 officers and men. There were 1,882 battles fought, being 
an average of more than one for each day of the war. One-half 
were fought in Virginia. Of this number in 112 battles there were 
more than 500 men killed in each battle. The killed in battle would 
average more than 1,400 men each month of the war, from the 
beginning to the end. The estimated cost of the Civil War to the 
Union and to the South both together, regardless of value of slaves, 
is estimated at $11,000,000,000.00. The Revolutionary War cost 
$135,193,703.00, and the lives of 30,000 American soldiers. The 
War of 1812 cost $107,150,000.00 and 2,000 American lives. The 
Mexican War cost $74,000,000.00 and 2,000 American lives. Indian 
wars and other minor wars cost $1,000,000 and 49,000 American 
lives. The estimates above given in regard to number of soldiers, 
captures, etc., in the Civil War are largely made from estimates. 
There were 292,627 slaves in Virginia and 12,866 free negroes. That 
is, according to the census of 1790. In 1860 there were 490,856 slaves 
in Virginia, freed by President Lincoln's proclamation, and 58,042 
free negroes. 

SESSION ACTS, 1866, WEST VIRGINIA LEGISLATURE. 

Be it Enacted by the Legislature of West Virginia : 

1. That no interest upon any debt contracted or liability in- 
curred prior to the first day of April, eighteen hundred and sixty- 
five, shall hereafter be recoverable in any action or suit in any of 
the following cases : 

I. Where, during the late rebellion, the real owner or holder 
of such debt or liability, while he was such owner or holder, was 
engaged in armed hostility against the United States, or this State, 
for the time he was so engaged. 

II. Where, during said rebellion, such real owner or holder of 
such debt or liability, Avhile he was such owner or holder, in any 
way gave voluntary aid to said rebellion, during the time he was 
so aiding the said rebellion. 

III. Where, during the said rebellion, such real owner or holder 
of such debt or liability, while he was such owner or holder, was a 
voluntary resident within the military lines of the so-called Con- 



228 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



federate States of America, beyond the boundaries of this State ; 
during the time of such residence. 

IV. Where, during the said rebellion, such real owner or holder 
of such debt or liability, while he was such owner or holder, was 
in sympathy with the said rebellion, and voluntarily left his home 
and went within the military lines of the so-called Confederate 
States of America ; for the time he remained within said lines. 

THE LAST FIGHT OF THE REBELLION. 

One of the last, if not the very last, fights of the Rebellion was 
fought on Greenbrier River, seven miles east of Hinton, at what is 
known as the Big Rock. Thurmond's Rangers were coming down 
Greenbrier River in a large canoe made from a big poplar tree; 
others coming down the road, when a squad of Union men fired 
on them from the bluff above the big road. They shot bullet holes 
through the big canoe and buttons off of the coats of the Rebels, 
but no blood was shed ; it was a bloodless fight. Both parties es- 
caped without anybody being killed or wounded. Jackson Grim- 
mett and Rufus Grimmett, John Bucklen and Clark Grimmett and 
others of this county were on the Union side; Joseph Hinton, 
George Surber and others were on the Rebel side. This battle was 
in the latter part of April, 1865, after Lee's surrender at Appomat- 
tox on the 9th of April, 1865. 

The "Pet Lamb" was a famous spy in the Lnited States service 
during the Civil War. He visited the Flat Top Mountain region, 
and was at Griff Miller's house along with a few Federal soliders. 
Eight of them hid behind a fence, and Miller went out and ran the 
whole gang off by having his negroes behind his yard fence yelling 
like fury, as though the whole Confederate Army was on hand. 

NATHANIEL HARRISON. 

This man was living in Monroe County before the war. He had 
married into the William Erskine family, which owned the Salt 
Sulphur Springs. He was a brilliant man, and had been prose- 
cuting attorney. Immediately after the close of the war he was 
made judge of Greenbrier, Monroe and Mercer Counties. He ap- 
pointed Benj. White sheriff of Mercer, and George Evans, clerk. 
White had been a violent secessionist at the beginning of the war, 
but at the close changed his principles, if he ever had any. George 
Evans was a Northern man and a Union man, and not a degraded 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 229 



citizen. Judge Harrison had been a Confederate as late as 1862, 
and had applied for a staff position under General A. A. Chapman. 
He suddenly changed his views for office sake. He was for the side 
that was in the saddle. There was more than one, Judge Harrison 
and Benj. White, affected with an easy character and an easy 
political virtue. They start out with the party in power, but 
desert when adversity comes; they abandon their friends in "ad- 
versity — floppers for office they become — as detestable as those who 
take the oath to support a cause, and desert to the enemy. Their 
characters are detested in all history. There were a good many of 
this kind at the close of the war when fortune had deserted the 
Southern cause. 

Judge Harrison went to Princeton to hold his first court in the 
fall of 1865. He was held in such detestation that not a soul spoke to 
him or asked him to alight from his horse ; therefore he turned round 
about, without alighting, rode back to Concord Church, and held, 
in the old Methodist church at that place, the first term of the court 
for that county held after the war. The ex-Confederates who had 
been elected that fall in each of the counties were by Harrison arbi- 
trarily turned out and refused permission to qualify, and no man 
who would not swear he had not aided, abetted or sympathized 
with the Southern cause was permitted to hold any office. This 
extended to school trustees, as well as to any young lady who de- 
sired to teach free school. 

This judge was a very corrupt and A^enal man, and, of course, 
the political lease of his official life was numbered. No free people, 
regardless of political differences, will long permit themselves to be 
ruled by corrupt or venal officials. Articles of impeachment were 
preferred against this corrupt judge in 1866 by a Republican Legis- 
lature, of which party he was then an adherent, and thereby he 
was forced to resign. 

He was arbitrary and corrupt, as well as dissipated. A great 
many ex-Confederate soldiers were sued in his court for acts done 
during the war. The defendants could not defend before him be- 
cause they could not take the oath. The juries were selected of 
the same character as the court. Many could not read or write, 
and had never been at a court house before. The judgments neces- 
sarily went in large amounts against the defendants, and the only 
result was utter bankruptcy. A number of these old judgments 
still stand uncollected, as things were changed by reason of an 
amendment to the Constitution introduced by Hon. W. H. H. Flick, 
a liberal man and lawyer from Martinsburg, Berkeley County. The 



230 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



judgments stand as monuments to the ignorance and fallacy of 
people gone mad with greed, political folly and power thrust on 
them, without the intelligence, education or intellect to use that 
power with justice, sense or principle. (See Second West Virginia 
Reports, page 496, Lewis Ballard v. Christopher Lively, as an ex- 
ample. This judgment was for $2,779.70.) 

This vicious situation was to be voted on for perpetuation by the 
people by reason of the joint resolution passed by the two houses 
of the Legislature, submitting the amendment to the Constitution 
in 1866, which would have had the effect of decitizenizing all ex- 
Confederates or their sympathizers. No one was permitted to vote 
execpt those who would take the infamous "test oath," which pro- 
vided that — 

"No person who, since the first day of June, 1861, has 
given or shall give voluntary aid or assistance to the rebel- 
lion against the United States, shall be a citizen of this 
State, or be allowed to vote at any election held therein, 
unless he has volunteered in the military or naval service 
of the United States, and has been or shall be honorably 
discharged therefrom." 

Thus the Legislature of West Virginia intentionally and plainly 
subverted the Constitution of the State, and openly violated the 
Constitution and the oaths of those who perpetrated the act. It 
was an open perversion of the Constitution in this. The Constitu- 
tion then provided, "That white male citizens of the State shall be 
entitled to vote at all elections held within the election districts in 
which they respectively reside." At the election at which this 
amendment was voted on, which was held on the 24th day of May, 
1866, and was ratified by a vote of 22,224 votes to 15,302 against it, 
only seventy-five votes were permitted to be cast in Mercer County, 
of which Jumping Branch and Pipestem were then parts and par- 
ticipated, sixty-one for ratification and fourteen for rejection, al- 
though the voting population of that county under the Constitution 
as it was then in force and effect was 1,000. Is not this a com- 
mentary? Out of a thousand legal voters in the county of Mercer, 
only seventy-five were of sufficient loyalty under the Nat Harrison 
regime to be allowed the elective franchise. Col. Thomas Little 
was a member of the Legislature from Mercer, which passed the 
resolution submitting this amendment, and a Republican; and to 
his eternal honor be it said he is recorded as voting against this 
iniquity, which meant to disfranchise and decitizenize his neigh- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 231 



bors ; also David Lilly, Hon. Sylvester Upton, Russell G. French, 
the latter being classed as an ex-Confederate soldier. These men 
recorded their votes against this iniquity. 

In Greenbrier County there were about 117 votes permitted to 
be cast, out of 1,300 votes in the county; and in Monroe County, 
about 300 votes were allowed to be cast and counted, and these 
three counties then included practically all of the territory of the 
unformed county of Summers. 

Nathaniel Harrison was a native of Virginia, connected by 
descent with the family of that ancient and honorable title, which 
has produced Presidents of the United States, generals of its ar- 
mies and statesmen of great sagacity, loyalty, honor and renown. 
He was educated at the University of Virginia ; a lawyer of accom- 
plishment; a most polished and ornate orator, distinguished and 
even handsome in appearance, but Satan had set his mark upon 
him. After failing to secure a place on the staff of General Chap- 
man during the war, he went to Richmond, squandered his patri- 
mony in tobacco speculation and dissipation, and when the result 
of the Civil War could be plainly seen and the life of the Confed- 
eracy was drawing to a close and trembling in defeat, he was an 
adventure of fortune; returning-to Monroe County, a dangerous 
and embittered man, he secured the circuit judgeship by protesta- 
tions of loyalty to the Federal cause, and administered the duties 
of that high office in the manner herein described, a description of 
which we are unable in language to do justice. 

It was he who went to Philadelphia, selected and induced an 
educated and finished lawyer, Major Cyrus Newlin, who was then 
living in that town, to come to his circuit, locate at Union and 
enter the practice of his profession. Newlin was a thoroughly 
educated, smart, bright lawyer, without principle or honor — a 
typical carpet-bagger. His family were of the wealthiest in the 
country, his mother having died while traveling on the continent 
. of Europe. He located at Union, and at once entered into a co- 
partnership with the judge (Harrison) in Mercer, _ Monroe and 
Greenbrier Counties. He instituted and prosecuted suits for dam- 
ages against the old soldiers of the Confederacy and others who 
had taken no part therein, for offenses alleged to have been com- 
mitted during hostilities. Harrison, as judge, tried the cases, 
determining arbitrarily in favor of Newlin and his clients and 
against those in opposition. It was currently reported that the 
income of Harrison at one time was $20,000.00 a year from this 
source. 



232 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Newlin was also dissipated and dissolute, and his ill-gotten 
fees passed through his hands as sands through a sieve. He took 
an active part in politics, and stopped at nothing to further and 
secure his purposes and ends and to further the interests of his 
party and to retain it in power, and his influence was very great 
over the ignorant and uneducated, many of whom had been thrust 
into power during the days of the reconstruction. He. continued 
to practice after the overthrow and disappearance of his corrupt 
ally, until soon after the formation of Summers County, while at 
Hinton for the purpose of attending court, he was stricken with 
paralysis one evening, carried to his room in the Wickham House, 
and there died the next day at two o'clock, and was buried in the 
old thicket on the hillside near where the old peddler had been 
murdered, and which was converted into a graveyard, the first 
in Hinton, but which is now open to the commons and generally 
desecrated, although there are many people buried at that place. 
There is nothing to mark the grave of this brilliant, though mis- 
guided man, and there is not a human being at this day can point 
out his grave, and no mortal eye to tell in what spot of the earth 
his remains rest. Forgotten and neglected, he has passed from 
the affairs of men. 

Augustus Gwinn was sued as a defendant in the Circuit Court 
of Monroe County before Judge Harrison for one of those trespass 
and harrassing actions, by James T. Dempsey, of Possum Hollow. 
He went to Union for trial, desiring a continuance, being one of 
the few who still possessed a twenty-dollar gold piece, carried 
throughout the four years of the war. He saw Judge Harrison 
coming out of the court room, walked over, met the judge on the 
street, and began a conversation, in the meantime throwing the 
gold coin up and catching it in his hand in the presence of the 
judge. He finally told Harrison that he wanted a continuance of 
that suit. The judge asked some questions, and finally said, 
"What is that you have in your hand?" Gwinn gave it to him. 
After talking a moment, he looked at it, turned it over a few times 
in his palm, finally stuck it in his pocket, winked at Gwinn, Gwinn 
did likewise at him, and turned and walked away, and Gwinn never 
afterwards heard of that suit in that or any other court, and Brother 
Dempsey, who still lives, is none the wiser to this day. 

After Harrison had been deposed, J. M. McWhorter was ap- 
pointed to fill the unexpired term of about two years, and was 
therefore the judge at the time Summers County was formed, and 
held that office at the time of its formation, and therefore 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



233 



appointed the first official in the organization of the new county. 
He was defeated for re-election by Judge Holt. Judge McWhorter 
was regarded as an honorable man and a just judge, though 
strongly partisan in his politics. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



HINTON. 

Hinton was founded in 1874, the first town lot being sold on the 
18th day of May, 1874. It is ninety-six miles from Charleston, fifty 
miles from Bluefield, sixty from Lewisburg; it is now the chief 
city in population between Staunton, Va., on the east, and Charles- 
ton, W. Va., on the west. It is the most accessible point from all 
directions in the Bluestone, New River and Greenbrier Valleys, 
and for all the mountainous and plateau regions of the counties of 
Greenbrier, Mercer, Fayette, Raleigh and Wyoming. It is the 
natural location for the center of population for all this section of 
the State ; there are now six country postal routes into the city. 
It is the end of the railway mail division between Cincinnati and 
Washington, it being the half-way point between those cities. 
There are now twenty railway postal clerks, who make their head- 
quarters in Hinton, a postmaster, assistant postmaster and five 
clerks; the income from the post office at this time is over $10,000 
per annum ; there is building a new public school building at a cost 
of $30,000, two large wholesale establishments, the New River 
Grocery Company, and the Hinton Hardware Company, whose busi- 
ness aggregates over $400,000 per year. At this time there is a 
two-story brick passenger depot, valued at $50,000, brick freight 
depot, valued at $10,000, and railway round-house and machine 
shops, valued at $100,000. The C. & O. Railway Company has more 
than $1,000,000 invested in tracks, yards and property in this city. 

There are three well-established banking institutions, the Na- 
tional Bank of Summers, capitalized at $100,000.00; First National 
Bank of Hinton, capitalized at $50,000.00, and the Citizens, capital- 
ized at $50,000.00. Three modern hospitals, Cooper's, Bigony's 
and Holly's ; a $50,000 bridge now spanning the New River, con- 
necting Hinton with Brooklyn on the Raleigh side ; three large 
lumber and planing mills, ninety mercantile establishments, and 
numerous other business institutions. There are twelve public 
roads running into Hinton from the surrounding country, with four 




HENRY S. GEROW, 
The First Quaker to Settle in Hinton. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 235 



public ferries and a bridge now building by The Foss Bridge Com- 
pany across Greenbrier River. More than 6,000 cars pass over the 
railway yards, east and west, each month, handling more than 
7,000,000 pounds of freight. The railway company employs about 
1,000 men in Hinton, with a payroll of $55,000.00 per month. There 
is now on deposit in the Hinton banks nearly $1,000,000. The new 
McCreery Hotel is now nearing completion, at a cost of $105,000.00. 
There are fourteen lawyers located at Hinton in active practice, 
and twelve surgeons and physicians ; there are now three weekly 
newspapers, "The Independent Herald," Democratic, "The Hinton 
Leader," Republican, "Summers Republican," and two dailies, "The 
Hinton News," Independent, and "The Daily Herald," Democratic. 
"The News" is published by The Franklin Publishing Company, and 
"The Herald" by The Herald Publishing Company, with the Hon. 
William H. Sawyers as general manager and editor. The people 
of Hinton are enterprising, progressive and industrious, educated, 
intellectual and patriotic, and the general morals good. 

There has been an active effort made within the past two years 
to secure for this city a modern government building, to be con- 
structed by the United States in Hinton. Through the efforts of the 
Hon. Joseph H. Gaines, a member of Congress, and Senator N. B. 
Scott, an appropriation of $10,000.00 was secured in 1906 for the 
purchase of a lot, on which this building is to be constructed. A 
very aggressive and somewhat acrimonious fight grew out of the 
location to be secured for this building, a large majority of the 
people of the county favoring the location on the public square, 
and that site was selected. The fight grew largely out of selfish 
interest of persons desiring the location near their private prop- 
erties. The contest became so aggressive that a number of our 
citizens desired to defeat the establishment of a government build- 
ing in the city, rather than not secure their personal preferences. 
The principal of these gentlemen were W. H. Garnett, R. F. Dun- 
. lap, R. H. Graham, R. D. Rose, R. R. Flannagan, C. H. Hetzel, 
Dr. O. O. Cooper and L. E. Dyke and others, who opposed the 
location selected, claiming, as their reason, that no part of the court 
house square should be used for any purpose, except for a public 
park, desiring a location on Third Avenue, or below. Those citi- 
zens principally making a fight for a government building and its 
location in a central place, the court house square, were Sira W. 
Willy, Upsher Higginbothem, E. C. Eagle, T. N. Reed, A. R. 
Heflin, Harvey Ewart, T. G. Mann, Jas. H. Miller, A. D. Dailey, 
John M. Garden, T. H. Lilly, J. .D. Humphries, William Plumley 



236 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and others. Delegations representing each -interest visited Wash- 
ington, and the advocated location of the court house square loca- 
tion finally succeeded, the government having adopted that lo- 
cation at a cost of $5,000. The county court offered the government 
a lot. the southeastern corner of the court house square, for the 
erection of this great public and beneficial enterprise, at $5,000. 
Free .delivery of the mails is inaugurated in the cities of Avis 
and Hinton in 1907. Much of the credit for the establishment of 
the government building at this place is due to Hon. Sira W. 
Willy, Upsher Higginbotham, E. C. Eagle and H. Ewart. 

The first train which was made up of flat cars that ever ran into 
Hinton was in 1872, carrying material for construction. This train 
was in charge of George Thomasson. conductor, and Seth Mack, 
engineer. The first person to die in Hinton was a child of Captain 
N. M. Lowry; the first person born was John Orndorft, son of the 
railroad conductor, John Orndorft. The second child born in Hin- 
ton was Dr. J. A. Gooch ; the first telegraph operator was a Mr. 
Baird, who had his office and residence in a box car. In 1872, 
Joseph and Silas Hinton started a moderate mercantile venture 
near the Upper Hinton ferry, which marks the commencement of 
commercial industry in Hinton. The first divine edifice erected in 
Hinton was the little Catholic chapel, erected by Father Walsh, 
in 1874, where the present imposing Catholic Church now stands. 
Rev. V. M. Wheeler was the first Methodist pastor sent to Hinton. 
The first person to operate a saloon in Hinton was W. C. Ridge- 
way, whose establishment was at the railroad crossing in Upper 
Hinton. The Y. M. C. A. building of Hinton is located near the 
passenger depot, and was constructed by the Chesapeake & Ohio 
Railroad Company, the citizens providing the ground for its loca- 
tion at their own expense. 

THE CITIES OF HINTON AND AVIS. 

The history of these two municipalities is so intertwined as to 
make it proper to write them in conjunction. While there are two 
separate city governments, there is but one town and no natural 
division line. At the time of the formation of this county there 
were but two houses within the corporate limits of the two corpo- 
rations. One was the old u J ac ^" Hinton residence, a hewed log 
building situate near the railroad crossing at the foot of the hill 
in Avis on the railroad right of way: the other was in the center of 
the yard near the round-house : the former was occupied as the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 237 



Hinton residence, and the latter as the Ballangee residence, Avis 
Hinton and her family residing in the former, and the family of 
Isaac Ballangee, deceased, in the latter. We are enabled, by the 
courtesy of Mr. Frank Cundiff, to produce a cut of the Ballangee 
residence, and by the courtesy of Mr. Howard Hinton to produce 
a cut of the old Hinton homestead. The Hinton homestead was 
occupied as a boarding house for a number of years after the com- 
pletion of the railroad, Mrs. M. S. Gentry being the proprietress 
for a number of years, and the first night ever spent in that town 
by the writer, thirty years ago, was in this boarding house of Mrs. 
Gentry, at which time Captain Phil. Cason, the oldest passenger 
railroad conductor then on the road, was then boarding. This house 
was finally torn down by the railroad company to make room for 
its double track. It was an old two-story log house, with an old- 
fashioned stone chimney, large fireplaces covered with shingles, 
the kitchen being at the end of the "big house." 

The Ballangee house was also of hewed logs, the "big house" 
being two stories, and the kitchen one story, with the same char- 
acter of chimneys and fireplaces, with a double porch fronting the 
mountain. This building was used by the railroad company for 
round-house, offices, and storage place for junk and rubbish for 
many years, but in the construction of the new yard tracks some 
eight or ten years ago, was pulled down. 

The lands on which Avis was built was, at the time of the found- 
ing of the cities, the property of Avis Hinton, the widow of John 
Hinton, to which she retained title until her death, except as she 
disposed of the same in lots. 

The Isaac Ballangee tract, on which the city of Hinton stands, 
was owned by the heirs of Isaac Ballangee, and consisted of 165 
acres. Some of these heirs being infants at the date when the rail- 
road was projected, Rufus Pack being guardian, took proceedings 
in the Circuit Court of Summers County to secure a decree for 
sale, by which the title was conveyed to the C. & O. Railroad Com- 
pany, in consideration of the sum of $3,500.00. Afterwards, the 
C. & O. Railroad Company conveyed all of the property except 
what it desired for railroad purposes and some five lots on which 
it had built tenement buildings, to the Central Land Company of 
West Virginia, a corporation, of which C. P. Huntington, the pro- 
moter and builder of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, was the 
president, and continued in ownership, selling off lots from time 
to time, until the company was placed in the hands of a receiver of 
the United States Court for West Virginia, who continued to sell 



238 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

lots and exercise dominion over the property until the death of C. P. 
Huntington, in 1903, when the remaining unsold portions, amount- 
ing to some eighty acres, mostly the hill land, was sold to Wm. 
Plumley, Jr., and E. H. Peck, of Hinton, for the sum of $11,000, and 
they have continued to sell off lots and small boundaries. 

The Hinton tract originally belonged to Henry Ballangee, 
having been patented by him and conveyed afterwards to John 
Hinton, who, becoming involved in debt, the land was sold by a 
decree of the Circuit Court of Monroe County, and purchased by 
Charles Maddy, John Maddy and David Hinton, three of his 
brothers-in-law, who lived in Monroe County, who held the title 
for some time, and then conveyed the same to Avis Hinton, who 
had succeeded in paying out the purchase money. 

What is now included in the territorial boundary of the city of 
Hinton was laid off into town lots, and a map made thereof in the 
year 1873, by B. R. Dunn, a civil engineer, and a brother of the 
late L. M. Dunn. This map is of record in the county clerk's office 
.of this county, in Deed Book "A," page 540. Stones were placed 
at the corner of each street, and they were sold by the railroad 
company and the Central Land Company at the price of $300.00 for 
corner lots, each inside lot being sold for $250.00 ; lots which orig- 
inally cost $300.00 are now selling and worth from $8,000.00 to 
$10,000.00. 

The first buildings erected in the town were principally on Front 
Street, one of the oldest buildings being the four-cornered, two- 
story square frame residence now owned by Miss Maggie Atkin- 
son; another one was the D. H. Peck building, recently pur- 
chased by Dr. S. P. Peck and transformed into a business 
and tenement building, with three stories. The court house 
and all of the flat remained an open common and was used 
principally as a pasture for cows, hogs and horses. The 
first business and residence building on the flat was that of John 
M. Carden opposite the court house, in which he established the 
Hotchkiss House (Hotel), and operated the same for a number of 
years. The next building was on the corner of Second Avenue 
and Ballangee Streets, near the court house square, built by Carl A. 
Fredeking, in which he operated a mercantile business with Mr. 
A. G. Flanagan; afterwards his son-in-law was manager. This 
house and half the lot is now owned by Dr. J. A. Fox, recently 
purchased for $5,200.00. 

Another one of the early buildings was a one-story, two-roomed 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 239 



frame near the present brick Methodist Church, built by B. L. Hoge, 
directly after the flood of 1878, when his residence was washed 
off in that distressing calamity. This was used by Mr. Hoge for a 
number of years, when he built an addition in front, and afterwards 
sold to the present owner, T. H. Lilly, the lumberman. 

In 1878, John Robinson's show gave a performance in a two- 
ringed circus on the square between Ballangee Street and Temple 
Street, on the lots occupied by the Central Baptist Church, J. H. 
Miller and J. T. McCreery's residences. Another one of the first 
buildings was the old Thespian Hall, built in what was known as 
Middle Hinton, opposite where Dr. Bigony's Hospital is now situ- 
ated. This building was an amateur theatrical arrangement, in 
which home talent furnished the actors and amusement for the 
town for some time, but, not being well supported financially, on 
account of the small population, was finally torn down. The first 
brick house erected in Hinton was by John Finn, an Irishman, on 
the corner of Third and Summers Streets. He purchased the lot 
January 27, 1874. The building is now owned by the city, and 
occupied by the city as its administration building. 

W. C. Ridgeway, early in the history of the city, built what was 
at that time considered a modern hotel on the corner of Third and 
Front Streets, now known as "Scrapper's Corner," and now owned 
by Mrs. R. S. Tyree. This building was afterwards burned down 
in one of the numerous conflagrations which visited this city. The 
buildings in the lower town are much more regular than in the 
upper, they being on the island and scattered. The upper town, 
however, was building up more rapidly than the lower until the 
great flood in 1878, which practically destroyed the upper part of 
that then flourishing village. Seventeen houses were washed away 
and a great deal of real and personal property destroyed, but no 
lives were lost. The storehouse building, which had been occupied 
as a court house, B. L. Hoge, the clerk's residence, J. P. Mill's fine 
' residence and others, whose names I am not now able to ascertain, 
were entirely swept away. This flood was the highest ever known 
within the memory of man of New River, and came without warn- 
ing and without opportunity for the residents to barely escape 
with their lives, without saving their property. Heaps of driftwood 
below, especially at New Richmond, were piled along the river 
banks on the shores, containing all manner of household goods, 
sewing machines, cook stoves, etc. 

Many daring acts were performed by the citizens in saving prop- 
erty from destruction, as well as the lives of the people. Hon. Wm. 



240 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



R. Thompson, then a young lawyer in the city, with the assistance 
of another party — Vanwinkle — secured a skiff, and, at great risk 
of their own lives, rowed to the residence of J. P. Mills, on the 
island near the present waterworks power house on the river bank, 
and saved the lives of that family. The water was up high into 
the building, and it was threatening to leave its foundation at any 
moment, when these gentlemen succeeded in reaching the building 
from the railroad with their boat across the tremendous torrent 
which was running between the hill and the main river. It has 
been related to me by persons who witnessed the act in the darkness 
of the night as one of the most daring acts recorded in the annals 
of adventure. 

After these gentlemen had secured from' danger these families 
they went to the Evi Ballangee place, about half a mile above, and 
where the old house is still standing ; the water was then running 
direct from the ferry down the side of the railroad track and over 
the railroad track a depth of some eight or ten inches ; at great 
risk they rowed across the track, the boat lodging on a rail, to the 
house of Mr. Ballangee, which was entirely surrounded, and solic- 
ited them to be permitted to be carried to safety, but were re- 
fused by Mr. Ballangee and his sister, who .preferred not to give up 
the house. 

The first citizens to locate in Hinton were Dr. Benjamin P. 
Gooch and M . V. Calloway — Dr. Gooch, from our best information, 
being the very first. Among the old inhabitants who settled in 
the town, now still living, are Messrs. R. R. Flanagan, A. G. 
Flanagan, his brother; C. A. Fredeking, Charles and Lee Frede- 
king, L. M. Dunn, Walker Tyler and W. C. Ridgeway. 

An effort was made in the year 1879 to incorporate the two 
towns as one, under the State law. A vote was taken, but the 
upper town, which is now Avis, being bitterly opposed, incorpo- 
ration was voted down ; the lower town then proceeded to take 
a vote on its own account, which vote carried, and on the 21st 
day of September, 1880, the Town of Hinton was incorporated 
under the State law by the circuit court of this county. After- 
wards, the upper town, becoming satisfied of the necessity and 
advantages of incorporation, took a vote, and on the 4th of Septem- 
ber, 1890, was incorporated by the circuit court as the Town of 
Upper Hinton. Jacob Pyles was the first mayor, elected October 
14, 1890. The first meeting of the council was held at Graham's 
shoe shop. These two towns continued in existence until 1897, 
B. F. Thompson being the last mayor, when Colonel Swope, an 



HINTON IN 1880. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



241 



active politician, who had emigrated into our midst from Monroe 
County, believing that he could advance the interests of the Re- 
publican party, proceeded to secure the passage of an Act of the 
Legislature incorporating the two towns into one. under the title 
of the City of Hinton, by special charter. An election was held 
soon after the passage of this act; but instead of aiding the Re- 
publican party., it seemed to have the reverse effect, every ward 
in the city electing Democratic councilmen, and an entire Demo- 
cratic administration. Colonel Swope then not being satisfied 
with the political situation, proceeded to have the two towns "di- 
vorced/' and at the session of 1899 the Legislature divided the 
two towns, leaving Hinton a separate corporation, and leaving Up- 
per Hinton without any municipal government whatever, the Colo- 
nel's idea being that if he could get Upper Hinton into a separate 
town, he could control its political destinies. After some time 
he had the upper town incorporated again under the State lav- 
as the City of Avis, and which incorporation remains operative 
to the present time: the city of Hinton operating under the spe- 
cial charter granted by the Act of the Legislature as modified by 
the second act dividing the town into the two municipalities. In 
addition to Col. Swope's political philosophy, he and a number of 
the upper Hinton people were dissatisfied with the administration 
of the municipal government. 

The first mayor of the town of Hinton was W. R. Benedict, 
who held for three terms. W, R. Duerson was mayor for three 
terms, and afterwards removed to Clifton Forge, Virginia, where 
he still resides, having been treasurer of that town for some ten 
years. I give below in succession the various mayors and re- 
corders of the town of Hinton, and also of the town of Upper Hin- 
ton and the city of Avis. The present mayor of the former is Hon. 
James F. Smith, who was re-elected for the third term on De- 
cember 5, 1905; and of the latter Mr. A. G. Meadows, who has 
been elected for the third term. R. H. Maxwell was the first 
mayor, R. \Y. Ervin the second,, A. G. Meadows the third, and 
Jas. E. Meadows the fourth. T. H. Allen was the first recorder, 
and held that office for several terms. The members of the first 
council were: A. G. Meadows, R. H. Maxwell, YV. A. Charlton, 
Dr. T. F. Bigony and Geo. W. Pyles. with J. L. Ramsay, town 
sergeant. 

The city of Hinton was named for Evan Hinton. the father of 
Summers County, and the city of Avis was named for Mrs. Avis 



242 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Hinton, an aged lady who owned the property on which it now 
stands. 

Until the year 1890 there was no water service for either town. 
In that year a joint stock company was organized through the 
efforts of a number of public-spirited citizens, under the title of the 
Hinton Water Works Company, which proceeded to put in a 
first-class system of water works for both towns, building a res- 
ervoir near the top of the hill, in close proximity to Hill Top 
Cemetery. This reservoir is not now in use. a new reservoir hav- 
ing been built in 1903, some 360 feet below the old reservoir. The 
original Hinton Water Works Company continued to own and 
operate the business until 1904. when it sold out its entire plant, 
franchises and property to the Hinton Water. Light & Supply 
Company, a West A Virginia corporation, composed of stockhold- 
ers residing in the city of Wilkesbarre, Pa., of which O. M. Leiner 
is president and general manager. The first superintendent un- 
der the new company was R. H. Peterson, who held the position 
until the summer of 1905. when he resigned, and was succeeded 
by A. G. Flanagan, who held the position for one month, and then 
resigned on account of ill-health ; he was succeeded by H. W. 
Piatt, who held the position until January 1. 1905. when he was 
succeeded by A. A. Miller, the present superintendent. 

The first lights for the town were the old-fashioned street 
lamps, which burned kerosene oil. These were continued until F. 
M.'Starbuck. an enterprising machinist, and Dr. S. P. Peck, con- 
structed a lighting plant for the city, contracting with the authori- 
ties for lighting the town and private residences and business 
houses with up-to-date electric lights. This plant was operated by 
Dr. Peck as owner until 1901. when he sold to the same gentle- 
men who purchased the Hinton Water Works properties, and they 
were consolidated into one establishment, the light and water 
service for the two cities now being provided by this company. 

A sewerage system was established in the year . at a cost 

of $10,000. Twenty-year bonds for the town of Hinton were voted 
to be used for that purpose. These bonds remain unpaid. The 
only indebtedness against the city of Hinton being the $10,000 
bonded indebtedness for sewerage purposes, and liability by reason 
of the $12,000 in bonds voted by the school district for high school 
purposes. 

The streets in the city of Hinton were named by the engineer. 
Dunn, Front Street taking its name by reason of its fronting on 
the railway track and the river: the next street above being Sum- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 243 



mers, named for the county; the next street above being Temple 
Street, named after Major Temple, one of the chief engineers who 
built the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, and who had his headquar- 
ters in the building constructed by him at New Richmond; Bal- 
langee Street, the next street above, was named after the old set- 
tlers of that name ; James Street was named for William James, 
the lumberman, who early settled in the town. The cross streets 
were originally called 1st, 2d, 3d, 4th, 5th, 6th, etc., streets, but 
are now called by the more modern name of avenues. 

The religious history of the town will be found under the va- 
rious church titles in a separate chapter, to which the reader is 
referred for details. The reader is also referred, for educational 
history of the towns, to the chapter on Schools. 

The first professional man to locate in the town was Dr. Benj. 
P. Gooch, as above stated: then Dr. Jno. G. Manser, and Dr. S. P. 
Peck, then a young man, who graduated and located in the city, 
and has since that time cast his destiny w T ith the towns and made 
them his home. N. M. Lowry, W. W. Adams and J. S. Thorne 
were probably the first lawyers. 

The first bank established in Hinton was the Bank of Hinton, 
promoted by Hon. Azel Ford as president, EdAvin Prince, Esq., a 
capitalist of Raleigh County ; and M. A. Riffe, then of Hinton, as 
cashier. This bank was afterwards converted into the First Na- 
tional Bank of Hinton. The second bank established was that of 
the Bank of Summers, in 1893, the principal promoters being the 
present and only cashier, Mr. J. H. Jordan, Jas. H. Miller, H. 
Gwinn, its president, and ex-Sheriff H. Ew^art and W. J. Bright- 
well. 

The latest banking establishment has only recently been or- 
ganized — that of the Citizens' Bank, a State institution, promoted 
by L. P. Graham, the cashier; W. H. Warren, its president, and 
J. Donald Humphries, one of the largest stockholders. These 
financial institutions are a pride and an honor to the town, and 
should be to any town. They are operated under honest, legitimate 
business management, and the people are as safe in intrusting 
their funds with them as with any government — at least, while 
under the present conservative management. 

The second attempt at a town hall w^as that built by J. H. 
Gunther, in the third story of a large brick building constructed in 
the year 1885, on the grounds now occupied by Dr. S. P. Peck's 
brick flats. This building was considered dangerous and was never 
successful, and was burned down a few years later. The next was 



244 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the present opera house, which was originally built by Colonel J. 
A. Parker and Dr. S. P. Peck, the entire second floor being used 
for opera house and theatrical purposes. Some differences having 
arisen between these gentlemen, the hall was divided, Dr, Peck 
discontinuing; and Colonel Parker has for many years operated 
the present Parker Opera House, which is the only institution of 
that character in the city. 

A new opera house is now under projection, to be built in the 
Masonic Temple, of which Hon. P. K. Litsinger is the promoter. 
R. R. Flanagan, in. the year 1900, built a three-story brick busi- 
ness house adjoining the Bank of Hinton, on Third Avenue, the 
third story being used as a hall, and has been the Knights Tem- 
plars hall since the organization of that order in the city. 

The Ewart-Miller Company completed in 1905 their new three- 
story brick building, the third story of which is devoted to hall 
purposes. 

The Hinton Toll Bridge is now under construction, being an 
iron bridge across New River, at the head of Temple Street, land- 
ing near the mouth of Madam's Creek. This enterprise was largely 
promoted by Dr. J. A. Fox, and when completed will be a valuable 
enterprise for the upbuilding of the lower town. 

THE NATIONAL BANK OF SUMMERS. 

This financial institution first opened for business June 3, 1895, 
under a charter issued by the Secretary of State of West Virginia, 
as a State bank, with an authorized capital of $50,000.00, and with 
a paid-up capital of only $27,800.00. Its first officials were H. 
Gwin, president; C. B. Mahon. vice-president: H. Ewart, James H. 
Miller and W. J. Brightwell, directors, with J. H. Jordan, cashier. 
These officers continued as long as the Bank of Summers was in 
existence. About the 1st of January, 1906, it was converted into a 
national bank, with the same directors, Captain Charles Faulkner, 
T. H. Lilly, James T. McCreery and Colonel J. A. Parker being 
added to the directorate, J. H. Jordan continued as cashier, H. 
Gwinn resigning as president, and James T. McCreery made presi- 
dent to fill the vacancy. The advancement of this bank has been 
phenomenal; it numbers among its stockholders a large number of 
the most prominent and safest business men of Summers County, 
the volume of its business now amounting to over $700,000.00, and 
occupies handsome bank- quarters on the corner of Third Avenue 
and Temple Streets, in Hinton, the book value of its stock being 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 245 

$160.00 per share, and is the strongest bank in the New or Green- 
brier River Valleys. 

BANK OF HINTON. 

This is the oldest banking institution in Summers County; it 
opened for business in 1887, and was capitalized at $25,000.00. Hon. 
Azel Ford was its promoter, with Edwin Prince. The first officials 
were Azel Ford, president; Edwin Prince, vice-president; M. A. 
Rifle, cashier; E. O. Prince, assistant cashier, and James Kay. They 
constituted also the board of directors. On the 29th of August, 
1900, the Bank of Hinton was converted into a national bank, under 
the title of the First National Bank of Hinton, and its capital in- 
creased to $50,000.00. The first dividend was declared on June 30, 
1901.. of three per cent., and since that time it has been one of the 
most successful business enterprises in the county, the book value 
of its capital stock being about $125.00 per share. The present 
officials of the bank are Azel Ford, president; O. O. Cooper, vice- 
president; W. H. Garnet, cashier ; Joseph Hinton, R. R. Flannagan, 
William Plumley, Jr., XL J. Cook and J. A. Graham, directors. Hon. 
Azel Ford has been president of the institution since 1887, and the 
successive cashiers have been M. A. Rifle, E. O. Prince, F. R. Van 
Antwerp, W. M. Puckett and W. H. Garnet, its volume of business 
now amounting to practically $500,000.00. It occupies a commo- 
dious, substantial three-story brick and stone building, erected for 
its especial occupancy, and is a modern banking institution in every 
particular, and includes among its stockholders many of the promi- 
nent financial men of Summers County. 

THE CITIZENS BANK. 

This bank was founded in November, 1905, by Luther P. Gra- 
ham, William H. Warren and J. Donald Humphries. The president 
is William H. Warren ; L. P. Graham, cashier ; and the directors 
are W. H. Waren, M. J. Cook, J. A. Graham, O. S. Fredeking, 
J. D. Humphries and John Lang. This is the youngest banking 
institution in the county and is a safe and substantial institution. 
The volume of its first year's business amounted to 8100,000.00, 
and the book value of its stock is $110.00 per share. 

The Hinton Hospital was founded by Dr. O. O. Cooper in 1900, 
and from a modest enterprise of a two-story building, it has grown 
into a large four-story establishment, with a staff of five surgeons, 



246 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and has a reputation throughout the State, O. O. Cooper, the owner 
and chief surgeon, having a reputation as one of the finest surgeons 
in the country. 

HINTON— DISTANCES FROM THE PRINCIPAL CITIES. 

Two hundred and ninety miles from Washington; 518 miles 
from New York ; 428 miles from Philadelphia ; 332 miles from Bal- 
timore ; 270 miles from Richmond ; 347 miles from Newport News ; 
357 miles from Norfolk; 307.9 miles from Cincinnati; 613.5 miles 
from Chicago ; 683.2 miles from St. Louis ; 96.6 miles from Charles- 
ton, the State Capitol. 

The post office at Hinton now distributes mail to 7,000 people. 
It is the most accessible and central point for operations in the New 
River, Bluestone and Greenbrier Valleys, and most of the moun- 
tainous and plateau regions of the counties of Greenbrier, Poca- 
hontas, Mercer, Fayette, Raleigh, Monroe and Wyoming, connected 
directly with each of these counties, except the latter. It is the 
natural location for the center of population for all this region of 
the State. It is situate on the main line of the Chesapeake & Ohio 
Railway, and is a central point for the distribution of the United 
States mails for this region. There are now six country postal 
routes into the city — one to Princeton, one to Jumping Branch, one 
to Beckley, one to Elk Knob and Clayton, one to Talcott and Al- 
derson, one to Forest Hill and Pack's Ferry, War Ford and Crump's 
Bottom, besides the railway mail service. It is the end of the rail- 
way mail service division between Washington and Cincinnati, the 
half-way point between those two cities. There are now ten daily 
mails delivered into Hinton by the railway service, and the number 
of pieces of mail received into this office and distributed therefrom 
daily is enormous. This postoffice is now open from 4:30 a. m. 
to 12 :00 at night, eighteen hours out of the day. 

The United States marshal has headquarters here, with one 
deputy, and it is a central point from which to operate that depart- 
ment of justice in this whole region of the State, a territory of 
more than 5,000 square miles. The railway company has more 
than a millon dollars invested in the -Hinton yards, tracks, etc. 

There are twelve public roads running into Hinton from the 
surrounding country, with four public ferries. There have been 
located the roads for two railways leading from Hinton up New 
River to the mouth of East River, at the junction of the county 
lines for Mercer, Monroe and Summers, West Virginia, and Giles 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 247 



County, Virginia, a distance of thirty-five miles, and the right-of- 
way secured and paid for by the Norfolk & Western and the Hin- 
ton & Northwestern Railroad Companies ; and it is also the central 
point for the large commercial interests in the New River Valley, 
and a large amount of lumber, staves and merchandise are trans- 
ported down that river to this place. More than 6,000 freight cars 
pass over the yards, both east and west each month, handling more 
than 700,000,000 pounds of freight. The company employs a thou- 
sand men at this point, with a monthly pay-roll of more than 
S50.000.00. There is now on deposit in the Hinton banks about 
$1,000,000, showing the thrift, saving and economy of the citizens 
of this county. There are now twelve lawyers located here, three 
weekly newspapers and two daily newspapers — "The Independent 
Herald," weekly and daily; "Hinton Leader/' weekly; "Daily 
News," and the "Summers Republican,"' weekly. To show the en- 
terprise and public spirit of the county court and its citizens, we 
reproduce a copy of an order entered concerning the location of a 
government building at this place. 

A few facts about the city were gotten out in pamphlet form, 
with a view to securing the erection of a United States Custom 
House at this point in 1906, by Messrs. E. C. Eagle, chairman; A. R, 
Heflin and Tames H. Miller, committee. 

HINTON HARDWARE COMPANY. 

The Hinton Hardware Company is the second pioneer whole- 
sale and jobbing establishment organized in Summers County. 
It is a joint stock company, chartered under the laws of the State 
of West Virginia, on December 26, 1901. Its first officers were, 
James H. Miller, president; James H. George, vice-president: A. 

G. Flanagan, secretary; H. Ewart. treasurer. The first board of 
directors consisted of James H. Miller. L. E. Johnson. A. G. Flan- 
agan. H. Ewart and J. C. James. 

The present officers are, James H. Miller, president; J. W. 
Ruff, vice-president : James H. George having resigned and re- 
moved to Wyoming County ; A. G. Flanagan, secretary, and H. 
Ewart, treasurer. The present board of directors are, James H. 
Miller, J. W. Ruff. L. E. Johnson. A. G. Flanagan, H. Ewart. T. C. 
James and W. J. Nelson. 

The first general manager was L. P. Graham, who took charge 
of the business at its organization, March 1, 1902, with Fenton 

H. Miller in charge of retail department. Mr. Graham retained 



248 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

the management until January 1, 1903, at which date he declined 
further election, and Fenton H. Miller, of Gauley Bridge, was made 
general manager, retaining the management until January 1, 1905, 
at which date he resigned to become the cashier of the Bank of 
Gauley, at Gauley Bridge, West Virginia, and at which time W. J. 
Nelson, the present manager, was elected. The salary paid the first 
manager was $100 per month, the second manager, $100 per month, 
and the present manager, $150 per month. 

The business has steadily grown. At its organization it bought 
out the retail establishment of L. P. Graham, and operated it until 
during the year 1904, both a retail and jobbing department. In 
1905 it disposed of its retail establishment to the Summers Hard- 
ware Company. In 1905, it constructed its first warehouse, an iron 
building, four stories, 45 feet in width by 190 feet in length, and 
carries a stock of about $30,000 in goods. The prospects for the 
future of this establishment are encouraging, it having passed 
the breakers in its financial existence. W. J. Nelson, of Roanoke, 
Virginia, is the present general manager; its bookkeeper being 
H. L. Johnson; first salesman; Joseph Roles, Ira Leftwich, Brent 
Dabney and John Lilly; first bookkeeper James Johnson. 

It first occupied rooms on Third Avenue, before the erection of 
its present handsome quarters. It deals in all character of hard- 
ware and merchandise incident to the hardware trade. Its terri- 
tory is now principally Summers and parts of Raleigh, Monroe, 
Greenbrier and Pocahontas. 



CHAPTER XIV. 



LAND TITLES. 

Land was abundant and cheap in the early days of Summers 
County, and the commonwealth was originally generous in land 
grants to settlers, and unwisely generous as to companies. There 
was little formality. As before stated, the pioneer located on 
such land as suited him, and looked after the title later. They 
simply took up what was called the "Tomahawk Right," or "Corn 
Title," which was in law no legal title whatever, but, by proper 
attention, these rights could be converted into legal titles, as herein 
shown, -and the settler was given a grant. Frequently the pioneer 
took up his claim near a spring, and would deaden some trees, and 
with his tomahawk place his initials on the skin of a tree. This 
done, the commissioners of the government would come along 
later, see who claimed the land, and these evidences of the settler's 
rights were respected unless he claimed title to too much. After 
laying his claim thus, he would plant a patch of corn, and thus 
grew up the fashion of claiming land under what was known as 
the "corn title." Under these arrangements as much as 400 acres 
could be taken up, and a claim by pre-emption to 1,000 acres more 
adjacent. The certificate given to the settler by the government 
representative would be sent in to Richmond, and if there was no 
other claim in six months, he would be given his grant, the good 
locations always being secured first, the land being so cheap the 
pioneer was more of a hunter than a farmer, and the foundation of 
much litigation was laid in the early days, and from which later 
a rich harvest fell to the part of the counsellor at law. In many 
instances the settler, having secured a claim, would sell his rights 
and the grant would be issued to the assignee, as will be noted 
from many of the old patents. They were granted, not to the 
original settler, but to his assignee. After the Revolutionary War 
what were known as Land Warrants were issued for a given num- 
ber of acres, and the party holding this warrant could go and 
locate it wherever he pleased, and they were frequently sold and 
assigned a number of times before a grant would be issued. 



250 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Persons grew wealthy trading in land warrants, for large tracts 
from twenty to many hundred thousand acres, and then selling 
these rights at speculative prices. The most of the land east of the 
Alleghenies was granted by the King of England, which were 
known as "Crown Grants." There are a very few crown grants 
west of the Alleghenies, and none of which we have any evidence 
within the territorial limits of Summers County. The United States 
Government never held any title to a' foot of ground therein. 

Lands in all this region were very cheap at the time of the early 
settlers ; any adventurer could secure a title to a large or small 
boundary, as he saw proper. The first settlers usually took up and 
located the fertile bottoms and level lands along the streams, which 
they considered worth paying taxes on. No formalities were re- 
quired ; the pioneer squatted on what he desired, and procured title 
at his convenience afterwards. The "tomahawk" or "corn title" 
was considered the best, although it amounted to no title at law, 
but usually grew into a good title in time. The man who located 
on his selection cleared out a patch of ground, and immediately 
raised some corn, after deadening a few trees. The man who raised 
the first hill of corn on a given tract was understood to be the owner 
of the ground, so he did not claim too much — the maximum being 
400 acres by the ''corn title" — and he might be entitled to 1,000 
acres adjoining, provided he proved his "corn title" claim by build- 
ing a residence and proceeding to farm it. The residence was usu- 
ally a log cabin. The representative of the government visited the 
different settlements once in awhile, secured proof of the "corn 
title." issued his certificates to the squatters. These certificates 
were later sent in to the governor at Richmond, who issued his 
"grant" or "patent" from the Commonwealth. It will therefore be 
observed that the pioneer easily secured his "squatter's rights" ; the 
same then merged into a settler's claim, and later a grant from the 
Commonwealth by its governor, under the great seal of the State. 
These were always written on parchment made from the dressed 
skins of some small animal. The poor land was always refused 
until the fertile land had all been taken up ; and, observing the 
dates of the various patents as they were issued from the Common- 
wealth, all of the bottom lands and level lands in this region were 
taken up first, as they bear the most ancient dates, the patents of 
which bear an earlier date than the high, hilly, rough and barren 
lands. The surveys in the early days were irregular, and made in 
a crude, and, frequently, inaccurate, manner, and the old patents 
nearly all contain more acres than the grants called for. Frequently 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 251 



the surveys would interlock. Later, lands were taken up by land 
office warrants : after these had remained on file a certain time a 
grant would be issued ; later, many patents were secured without 
any actual survey. The land-grabber or speculator would get an 
engineer to lay down on a piece of property without any actual 
survey, a tract of land sometimes containing thousands of acres, 
without ever going on the grounds. In this way sometimes these 
land titles would cover the same property, but usually the 
man secured actual possession and retained it — had nine points 
of law in his favor. There were a few, however, of the larger 
grants in Summers County. There were some, however, including 
the Henry Banks, in Green Sulphur District ; Welch, in Pipestem ; 
McCraw's and Hollinsworth, Pollard's, and others which contained 
thousands of acres, but the great proportion of the territory of 
Summers County was taken up in comparatively small patents. 
We give a few instances of litigation that has grown out of the 
conflicting land titles in this county; but comparatively little liti- 
gation has arisen. All of the titles of land in this county are de- 
rived from the Commonwealth since it became a member of the 
United States. Prior to that time the grants to land titles within 
the territory of Virginia were from the Crown of England. After 
the Revolution a man bought his land warrant, located his land 
wherever he could find it, and frequently sold and assigned his 
warrant, and the patent would be issued to the assignee. The titles 
to the land west of the Alleghenies runs back to the Common- 
wealth ; the titles to the land east of those mountains were granted 
by the Crown of England. We know of no land in Summers 
County or in this region which was a Crown grant, unless a part 
thereof was derived from that source through the Greenbrier Com- 
pany, which had a grant for 100,000 acres, through John Lewis. 
While many of the conveyances of land titles in this county are 
loosely thrown together, they are usually sufficient to be readily 
cured, and the titles are practically perfect. No part of the lands 
of Summers County at any time ever vested in the United States 
Government. There were a few patents issued by the State of 
West Virginia, after its formation in 1863, but a very small and 
insignificant proportion, if any tract of land, could now be found va- 
cant in Summers County, with no one claiming the title. No grant 
could be secured, but it is reported as vacant and unappropriated, 
sold by authority of law, and the proceeds passed to the credit of 
the general school fund. There are also a number of other titles 
in the county known as tax titles. Where the owner of real estate 



252 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



fails to pay the tax thereon, it is returned as delinquent for non- 
payment of taxes, sold by the sheriff, and the proceeds credited to 
the general school fund. The clerk executed to the purchaser a 
deed conveying the title vested in the party in whose name the land 
was forfeited for the non-payment of the taxes thereon. 

The lands at the mouth of Bluestone were patented to the same 
Thomas Gatliff, as assignee of David Frazier, by grant from Robert 
Brook, Governor of Virginia, on the 30th day of July, 1796. J. L. 
Barker now resides on a portion of this grant, which consisted of 
370 acres; John W. Barker on another portion; the old Charles 
Clark homestead and L. M. Meador's family on another portion. 
Thomas Meador, the father of Samuel H. Meador, at one time, and 
at his death owned a portion of this valuable property. He was a 
relative of the Packs. 

The earliest land grant of which we have knowledge is for a 
tract of land on the mountain between the mouth of Greenbrier 
River and Wolf Creek. It was issued by Thomas Jefferson in 1779. 
The claim for the land was laid in 1772, four years before the Decla- 
ration of Independence. 

On the seventh day of May, 1869, David Keller and wife con- 
veyed three of these ancient surveys to Andrew Gwinn, David 
Keller having derived title under the will of Conrad Keller. All 
of these old papers are very ancient, and are something of curiosi- 
ties by reason thereof. 

The land titles of the whole of the county were derived from the 
Commonwealth by these grants, commonly known as "patents," 
issued by the governor. Prior to the date of the Revolutionary 
War the titles were derived from the Crown of England by grants 
from the king, but there are no Crown grants in Summers County, 
unless the 100,000 acres granted to the Greenbrier Company lies in 
this county. This grant was prior to 1776. 

The "West Survey" Welch patent, of some 29,000 acres in Pipe- 
stem, was granted in 1795. There is now less than 5,000 acres of 
it intact. 

The Isaac Ballengee land (Avis) was granted October 18, 1787; 
patent to Jean Ballengee, 13 acres, in November 22, 1800. 

Rufus Pack, executor, sold to the C. & O. Railroad, December 
6, 1871, for $3,600.00. the land on which Hinton is now built, at 
auction, and the C. & O. Railroad Company to Central Land Com- 
pany, January 20, 1875; Central Land Company to Wm. Plumley 
and E. H. Peck; and E. H. Peck and Wm. Plumley to J. A. Parker, 
the various owners continuing to sell off town lots during their 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 



253 



ownership within the city of Hinton, and Avis Hinton to do the 
same in the town of Avis. 

John M. Gregory issued his patent to Ephraim and J. Gwinn 
August 30, 1842, for twenty-one acres. 

On the 31st of July, 1779, John Osborne sold to Samuel Gwinn, 
for five shillings, 245 acres at Green Sulphur. Samuel Gwinn con- 
veyed these lands to his son, E. J. Gwinn, as a gift on the 20th of 
October, 1829. 

Robert Withrow, who seems to have been the founder of the 
ancient Lick Creek family of that name, of whom John K. and 
Columbus Wran are now the oldest representatives living in that 
region, resided on and owned the farm back of the old Miller grave- 
yard on Lick Creek, owned by A. A. Miller at his death, and now 
by his son-in-law, John A. George. He purchased from one Strick- 
land. Robert Withrow also owned the place where John Dunbar 
lives, these lands having passed through the hands of Jack Smith, 
one of the most ancient merchants and the first who kept a store at 
Elton. 

James Wood, Governor of Virginia, issued his letters pat- 
ent to James Claypool for 285 acres of land at Green Sulphur 
Springs on the 17th day of March, 1798. The same governor, in 
1795, issued a patent to Samuel Hollandsworth for 480 acres. Hol- 
landsworth was assignee of John Osborne, Henry Stockwell and 
James Claypool, and adjoined the John Farris patent. In 1799, 
John Osborne and wife conveyed, for fifty-eight shillings, to Sam- 
uel Gwinn, of Monroe County, 250 acres, patented of the 30th of 
October, 1793, witnessed by John Ball. 

Samuel Gwinn was the founder of the Gwinn family, and was a 
Revolutionary soldier, and on this land was settled Ephraim J. 
Gwinn, who married Rachel Keller. He is the discoverer of the 
Green Sulphur Springs and father of M. and H. Gwinn. 

Thomas Randolph, Governor of Virginia, issued patent to 
Samuel Gwinn the 1st of November, 1821, for thirty-one acres of 
land on Lick Creek. 

James Preston, Governor of Virginia, issued patent to John 
Duncan on the 17th of August, 1816, for 19^ acres of land on Mill 
Creek, near its mouth at Green Sulphur. 

James Monroe, Governor of Virginia, issued his patent to Sam- 
uel Gwinn for five acres of land on the 2d of December, 1800. 

Henry Lee, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, granted 
by his patent 380 acres of land to Jeptha Massey on the 15th day 
of August, 1794. The date of survey was the 2d of February, 1791, 



254 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



on Greenbrier River, below the lands of Samuel Gwinn at the lower 
end of a small island. This included the George W. Chattin place 
opposite Talcott, and a part of the 380 acres is now held by N. 
Bacon, Esq. 

On the 8th day of September, 1824, James Pleasants, Jr., Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, granted to Sallie Graham, by patent, eighteen 
acres in Monroe County, on Greenbrier River, adjoining the lands 
of Jonathan Matthews. This is the identical land at the falls of 
Greenbrier River on which Bacon's Mills are now situated and on 
which Fluke's mill and carding machine was burned, and was evi- 
dently secured for the valuable water power thereon. A mill-race 
was on the ground at the time the patent was issued, and is men- 
tioned in the description thereof. These two ancient land papers 
are in the hands of Mr. N. Bacon. 

On May 13, 1813, William Cary Nicholas issued his patent to 
John Miller for thirty-seven acres on main Flag Fork of Lick Creek 
on the waters of New River ; Land Office Treasury Warrant No. 
1936, issued 15th of January, 1808, adjoining Samuel Withrow, 
- John Stuart and his own land. 

John Tyler, Governor of Virginia, and afterwards President of 
the United States, issued his patent to James Butler for 130 acres 
of land, which is the same tract of land granted to John Griffith for 
134 acres by patent of July 30, 18 — , and by Griffith conveyed by 
deed to James Butler, dated December 11, 1802, as 135 acres on 
Flag Fork and Fisher's Branch. This is the land known as the 
Simms' Ridge Farm, where John Hoke now lives, in Green Sulphur 
District. 

Edmund Randolph, Governor of Virginia, issued his patent on 
the 19th day of April, 1788, to Benjamin Pollard, assignee of Henry 
Banks, for 1,390 acres on "Bradshaw's River," a branch of Indian 
Creek, by virtue of Land Office Warrant issued as No. 21,563, dated 
23d of December, 1783; surveyed March 8, 1786. This large grant 
is now cut up into many small farms, and is in Forest Hill District, 
and includes the A. M. Hutchinson farm and many others adjoining. 

In 1794, General Wayne won his great fight with the Indians at 
Fallen Timbers, which broke completely their power and terminated 
their depredations east of the Ohio River. The Crown of England 
had made large grants of land in order to secure possession of the 
territory west of the Allegheny Mountains, which was claimed 
under the dominion of the French kings, and at one time France, 
no doubt, had the best title, and, in order to secure its claims, the 
King of England granted the Ohio Company 500,000 acres between 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, 



WEST VIRGINIA. 



255 



the Monongahela, Kanawha and Ohio Rivers ; to the Greenbrier 
Company 100,000 acres on the Greenbrier and its waters ; to the 
Loyal Land Company, 800,000 acres north from the North Carolina 
line. It was in 1751 that John Lewis, while proceeding to locate 
the Greenbrier grant, found Steven Sewall and Jacob Marlin, at 
where Marlington is now located, in Pocahontas County. The 
Loyal Land Company proceeded to locate its grant on the upper 
New River, in Giles and adjacent territory. The French were 
watching these transactions, and undertook to thwart the inten- 
tions of the British Government, and sent out its soldiers from 
Lake Champlain, who came on to the forts at the Miami, and a 
number of Indians and traders were killed, and thus began the 
French and Indian War, the termination of which forever ended 
all claims of the French dominion over these territories. Imme- 
diately after the destruction of the power of the Indians by General 
Wayne, in 1794, the country in all this region rapidly settled. Land 
grants were taken out as rapidly as located, and a great majority 
of these grants or patents were by reason of this celebrated victory. 
Robert Morris, the American patriot financier, who financed the 
Revolution in Philadelphia, and who died in poverty, secured grants 
of 8,000,000 acres, some of which was within the territory of our 
county, and largely in Raleigh, Fayette, McDowell, Wyoming, 
Boone, Logan, Mingo, Wayne, Cabell. Lincoln, Kanawha, Mercer 
and Putnam Counties. There were two of the Robert Morris pat- 
ents of 50.000 and 75,000 acres which lapped over in to the territory 
of this county, one in Forest Hill and one in Jumping Branch ; 
80,000 acres were granted to Samuel Hopkins; 17,000 to Moore and 
Beckley, a considerable part of which was in this county; 90,000 
acres in one patent to James Welch, later known as the West Lands ; 
another Welch patent of 28,000 acres : originally part of this patent 
is in Pipestem District. John West lived in Alexandria, Va. His 
descendants sold to John E. Reubsam. The land is now owned by 
Kelso Dickey and others, and there is no more than 4.000 or 5,000 
acres remaining, in detached and small tracts, mostly on the waters 
of Pipestem and Bluestone ; 50,000 acres were granted to DeW r itt 
Clinton ; another grant to Robert Morris of 500.000 acres ; to Dr. 
John Dillon, 480,000 acres, and so on. These large grants were in 
this region, but only a small proportion of them in this county. Fre- 
quently they lapped over each other, or there were junior and 
smaller patents within them, and from which source great harvests 
have been reaped from litigation to the attorneys-at-law. John 
West, who is known from his connection with the large survey of 



256 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



land in Pipestem District, and of another 10,000 acres in Raleigh 
and Wyoming, was a natural son, his residence being in Alexan- 
dria, Va. 

Edmond Randolph, Governor of Virginia, issued his warrant to 
James Gwinn on the 8th day of November, 1787, and in the twelfth 
year of that Commonwealth, for 400 acres on Little Wolf Creek, 
adjoining John Dixon. 

Beverly Randolph, Governor of Virginia, on the 30th day of 
January, 1790, issued his grant to James Gwinn for sixty acres on 
Keller's Creek, and Peter V. Daniel, Lieutenant-Governor of Vir- 
ginia, on the 1st day of July, 1819, issued his warrant to Joseph 
Gwinn for twenty-five acres on Keller's Creek. 

Edmond Randolph, Governor of said State, on the 10th of De- 
cember, 1787, issued his patent unto Samuel Gwinn for 400 acres by 
virtue of survey made on the 1st of June, 1784, on the south side 
of Greenbrier River adjoining Henry Jones and John Van Bibber. 
This is the land on which O. T. Kesler now resides, which has 
recently been purchased by the Summers Food & Dairy Company. 

James Wood, Governor of said Commonwealth, on the 20th day 
of January, 1798, issued his grant unto Samuel Gwinn for 220 acres 
adjoining William Graham. 

Edmond Randolph issued his patent unto John Lee, assignee of 
Peter Van Bibber, for 180 acres on Greenbrier River, adjoining 
John Van Bibber, on the 18th day of October, 1787. 

James Monroe, then Governor of Virginia, afterwards President 
of the United States, and the author of the famous "Monroe Doc- 
trine," on the 5th day of August, 1782, granted unto William and 
David Graham, forty-three acres adjoining Conrad Keller, Samuel 
Gwinn and John Perry. 

These lands are now principally, if not altogether, owned by 
Andrew Gwinn, of Lowell, and these grants are all written in long 
hand on the old parchment made from sheepskin. We have an old 
deed between Samuel Gwinn, Sr., and Samuel Gwinn, Jr., dated on 
the 26th day of October, 1807, by which is conveyed three different 
tracts of land on Greenbrier River near Lowell. The signature of 
Samuel Gwinn is witnessed by O. Tolles, Joseph Alderson, John 
Gwinn and George Alderson ; was admitted to record at the Decem- 
ber court of Monroe County, 1807; attested by Isaac Hutchinson, 
C. T. 

M. C. Barker purchased of Alfred Beckley on the 7th day of 
June, 1850, a part of the Moore and Beckley Survey in Jumping 
Branch District, on the Cottle Ridge, containing 545 acres, for the 



HISTORY' OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 257 

sum of $500. The deed to this property is written in the beautiful 
handwriting of General Alfred Beckley, the famous scrivener, sur- 
veyor and graduate of West Point, whose father was the first clerk 
of the House of Representatives of the United States Congress, 
and whose son, John Beckley, was for many years the accomplished 
clerk of the County Court of Raleigh County, and is still an hon- 
ored citizen residing at Beckley. 

We find here and there throughout the county a few of the 
original land grants or patents from the State of Virginia to various 
of the early settlers. Among these we have run across the original 
granted by William Smith, Governor, to Edwin W. Woodson and 
Jacob .Campbell, bearing date of the 14th day of March, 1845, for 
259 acres on Bradshaw's Run. 

A second grant by said William Smith, Governor, to John 
Woodrum and Bird Woodrum for 231 acres on Spruce Run in 
Forest Hill District, granted on the 20th day of November, 1846. 

John Tyler, Governor of Virginia, granted unto William Gra- 
ham, on the 10th day of January, 1810, and in the 34th year of the 
Commonwealth, 200 acres. The original survey for this grant was 
on the 12th day of July, 1803. This land is situated on Greenbrier 
River at Lowell, and is now owned by Andrew Gwinn. Joseph 
Pierson secured a grant in the same neighborhood on the 10th day 
of July, 1797, which was conveyed by deed afterward to said Wil- 
liam Graham, and is described as being on Keller's Creek, a branch 
of Greenbrier River, adjoining Conrad Keller, Samuel Gwinn, John 
DeBoy and David Jarred. 

A patent was issued to Henry Banks, adjoining and below 
Captain James Graham, of 2,070 acres; also another for 1,000 acres, 
by virtue of Treasury Warrants Nos. 16,854 and 16,865, dated on 
the 2d of June, 1773, said Banks being the assignee of Malcolm 
Hart. Date of patent, April 24, 1786. These lands were on Green- 
brier River. 

Thomas M. Gregory, Lieutenant-Governor of Virginia, issued 
patent to Francis Tyree on the 13th of August, 1842, for eighty- 
nine acres on Hump Mountain, adjoining the Michael Kaylor, John 
Gwinn and William DeOuasie land. This land is the David Bowles 
land, a part of which is now owned by W. W. Richmond. The land 
had been taken up long before the war by Land Office Treasury 
Warrant No. 14,032. 

James Johnson, Governor of Virginia, issued his patent to Rob- 
ert Hurt for forty-five acres on Tom's Run, in Pipestem District, 
on the 11th day of December, 1850, now belonging to Henry N. — . 



258 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



James Johnson, Governor, issued his patent also to Andrew 
Farley, Jr., October 21, 1851, for 110 acres, now owned by O. J. 

Farley, in Pipestem District. 

John B. Floyd, Governor, issued his patent to Robert Hurt, on 
the 29th of June, 1850, in Pipestem. 

John B. Floyd, Governor of Virginia, also issued to Albert G. 
Pendleton and Allen Brown a patent for 320 acres in Pipestem Dis- 
trict, on the 20th of May, 1850. 

John Letcher, who was Governor of Virginia when the Civil 
War began, issued his patent to James Ellis on June 3, 1859, for 
150 acres on Three Mile Branch of Tom's Run, in Pipestem Dis- 
trict of Mercer County, by virtue of Land Office Treasury Warrant 
No. 22,577. 

Said Joseph Johnson, Governor, also issued his patent to Robert 
Pine for 200 acres on the head of Tom's Run, on the 10th of June, 



Harry A. Wise, Governor of Virginia, issued his patent to Park- 
erson Pennington on the 13th of June, 1844, for sixty-five acres on 
Three Mile Branch of Tom's Run. 

On the 12th of May, 1858, said Governor of Virginia, Henry A. 
Wise, issued his patent to David Martin for seventy-four acres on 
Tom's Run, W r arrant No. 22,757. 

Governor John B. Floyd also, on the 24th of June, 1850, issued 
his patent to Hugh Means for six acres between Dry Fork and 
Tom's Run. Hugh Means was the father of Charles Means, who 
lived many years on Lick Creek, and was a character in his day. 

On the 8th day of June, 1855, Governor Henry A. Wise issued 
his patent to Gideon Farley, by virtue of Warrant No. 21,724, for 
100 acres, on Clay Branch. 

On the 23d day of March, 1856, Alexander H. H. Stuart, who 
once owned the White Sulphur Springs, conveyed to William 
Brown 100 acres in St. Clair Abbott tract. This deed was recorded 
in Mercer County. 

Henry A. Wise, Governor, also, on the 18th day of June, 1856, 
granted to John Cawley, at Symmon's Fork of Pipestem, 200 acres, 
270 acres, and sixty-rive acres, surveyed for Brown and Pennington. 

James Pleasants, Governor of Virginia, issued his patent to Asa 
Ellison, by virtue of Land Office Warrant No. 6,802, on the 23d of 
September, 1822, for forty-six acres of land on Tom's Run, then 
Giles County. 

On the 24th day of May, 1850, John B. Floyd, Governor of Vir- 
ginia, issued a patent to Larkin T. Ellison for 150 acres in Mercer 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 259 

County on Tom's Run, the waters of New River, which Ellison 
conveyed to William Hughes and D. R. B. Greenelee, October 
10, 1853. 

And Henry A. Wise, Governor, issued a patent on the 12th day 
of May, 1858, for seventy-four acres to David Martin in Pipestem. 

And the said Henry A. Wise, as Governor of the Commonwealth 
of Virginia, on the 29th of June, 1845, issued his patent to William 
Phillips, for sixty-five acres on the waters of Two Mile Branch. 

Each of the fifteen last-named patents or grants were involved 
in the suit in equity of Sarah A. A. Gerow, plaintiff, against John 
R. Newkirk and others. They were each junior grants to the 
grant to a large tract of 2,050 acres, which she claimed. Her title 
came from the grant known as the Samuel McCraw patent. Mrs. 
Gerow was a descendant of Abram Owen, who made his last will 
in 1811, November 13th, by which he devised this tract to John 
and Ebenezer Owen, his two sons. Abram Owen was a New 
Yorker. John Owen died intestate and without issue, and the 
property came to Ebenezer and a sister, Mary Ann, who married 
Steven NeAvkirk. Ebenezer Owen died, leaving as his only children, 
Sarah A. A. and John, who conveyed his interest to his said sister, 
who married H. S. Gerow. Steven Newkirk died, leaving two 
children, John R. and William H., as his only heirs, and inherited 
one-fourth of said lands, and Mrs. Gerow the other three-fourths. 

Steven Newkirk moved on the land and took possession. He 
and his children sold off a large amount and made deeds to more 
than one-fourth of their interest. Mrs. Gerow and her ancestors 
lived in the East, and depended on them to look after it for their 
joint benefit. A large part of it was entered on by junior patentees, 
who took actual possession. 

Finally, John R. Newkirk had the land sold for the non-payment 
of taxes, and bought it in for his own benefit and for his brother, 
Wm. H., who took deed thereto, which was in March, 1875. 

In 1883, Mrs. Gerow and her husband came to this country to 
iook after their inheritance, and discovered that it had apparently 
disappeared. A large part had been sold by the Newkirks, and 
another large part had been entered by junior patents, and the 
remainder of her title sold for taxes, and purchased by the New- 
kirks. She employed an attorney, James M. Malcolm, then prac- 
ticing law in Hinton, to institute and prosecute a suit for its re- 
covery. Every person who had title to any part of the land was 
made a party defendant, including W. D. Wyrick, Isaiah Rogers, 
John Cawley, Mary Blunt, Josephus Anderson, Joseph Heslip, John 



260 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Williams, Henry Noble, O. J. Farley, H. W. Straley, L. W. Farley, 
Ira Hall, John A. Douglas, W. P. Rogers, Robert Elliott, Ellen 
Farley, wife of James Farley, James R. Farley, Chas. A. Farley, 
Richard Campbell, Joseph E. Farley, Rufus Clark, Wm. D. Wyrick, 
David Martin, Henry Lilly, A. J. Bragg and others, who employed 
an attorney to defend them. Long litigation followed; additional 
attorneys were employed by Mrs. Gerow, including E. W. Knight, 
of Charleston, and Col. J. W. Davis, of Greenbrier County. 

Finally a decree was entered, by which Mrs. Gerow recovered 
her three-fourths, less those lands which had been entered by junior 
patents. The tax deed was set aside and held void, and the lands 
sold to the extent of one-fourth of the Newkirk's interest. Commis- 
sioners were appointed to make partition, composed of Wm. B. 
Wiggins, John P. Duncan, and Lewis A. Shanklin, who filed their 
report, and out of the whole 2,500 acre patent she recovered 800, 
largely in small and detached tracts. Only one or two of the de- 
fendants lost, John A. Williams being the only one except one of 
the Halls. 

Mrs. Gerow still resides in Hinton, and has not sold any of the 
land. She is a lady of accomplishments and of fine business attain- 
ments, and has accumulated a handsome fortune, in some of the 
best real estate in the city. Her husband, Henry S. Gerow, a very 
worthy gentleman, died several years ago. When the yards were 
about to be removed from Hinton, Mrs. Gerow contributed $100.00 
towards purchasing the upper Hinton land, which shows her patri- 
otism towards the town. 

James Wood, Governor of Virginia, granted to Mathias Kis- 
singer, on the 8th day of August, 1799, 350 acres of land on Green- 
brier River, just below Greenbrier Springs (Barger's), where An- 
drew L. Campbell now lives. Kissinger's Run, which runs through 
the lower end of this place, was named after this grantee. A part 
of the second house ever built on this land is still standing, and is 
a hewed poplar log house, with a stone chimney 7 x 10 feet, and 
wood can be burned in it seven feet long. The house is known to 
be over 100 years old. But three corner trees are standing on this 
grant; one large oak on the bank of the river was cut by A. L. 
Campbell in January, 1905, and the growths, which he counted care- 
fully, showed the tree to be over 320 years old. The tree was 
entirely dead, but perfectly sound, and had been for several years, 
and was cut by Mr. Campbell to save the stump for a corner. 

John Page, Esquire, Governor of the Commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia, issued his patent to David Graham and William Graham for 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 261 



284 acres, by survey bearing date the 19th day of November, 1798, 
and the patent issued on the 19th of January, 1800, and is for a 
tract of land lying and being in the county of Greenbrier on the 
south side of the Greenbrier River on Blue Lick Run, joining the 
lands of William Graham, John Lockridge and John Canterberry. 
This is the Blue Lick that now runs by Greenbrier Springs, and 
the land therein described is now owned by Mrs. N. M. Bacon. 
This, with a number of other old patents, including the "Chattin" 
or "Mathews" place at Talcott, are in her possession in a fine state 
of preservation. She also has the Polly Graham patent, at which 
Bacon's Mill is situate, all preserved by Mr. Robert C. Bacon, who 
seems to have been scrupulously careful in the collection and pres- 
ervation of his land title papers, an example followed by his son, 
Nathaniel, and which might, with profit, be followed by a great 
many others at this day and time. 

On the 22d day of April, 1788, Edmund Rudolph, Governor, also 
issued his grant by patent to Benjamin Pollard, assignee of Henry 
Banks, for 2,500 acres, by survey bearing date of the 8th day of 
March, 1786, and in the twelfth year of the Commonwealth of 
Virginia, by virtue of Land Office Treasury Warrants No. 21,563 
and No. 16,055, of the 8th day of May, 1783. This is described as 
being in Greenbrier County on Bradshaw's Run, a branch of Indian 
Creek, which is a branch of New River, and adjoining a survey 
made for William Bradshaw. This survey is in Forest Hill District 
and is cut up and now occupied by innumerable little farms, by 
thrifty, independent and well-to-do citizens. 

The noted ejectment case of Turner vs. Hutchinson was over 
lands included in these Pollard patents, the Turners claiming under 
the 1,390-acre patent, and the Hutchinsons under the 2,500-acre 
patent. One trial was had and a hung jury resulted, and later a 
compromise was effected, each party paying his own costs. There 
is one long line between the surveys of four miles. A fine map of 
these surveys was made by Hon. William Haynes, who was ap- 
pointed to execute an order of survey. It is a very handsome piece 
of draftsmanship. It is now in the hands of Mr. A. M. Hutchinson, 
of Forest Hill. 

There is also in the hands of the M. E. Church trustees at Forest 
Hill a deed dated the 19th day of October, 1835, from John H. Vaw- 
ter and Clara S., his wife, and Allen T. Caperton and Harriet, his 
wife, to George W. Hutchinson, Alexander Byrneside and Peter 
Minner, Henry Maggart, John Thomas, Richard McNeer, William 
Arnett, David Pancoast and Jacob Cook, trustees for the uses and 



262 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



trust, conveying to them one acre of ground between Spruce Run, a 
branch of Greenbrier River, and Bradshaw's Run, a branch of Indian 
Creek, on which was to be erected a house of worship to be held 
according to the uses of the members, ministers and conference of 
the Methodist Church of the United States of America, and it 
provided for the selection of a new trustee when one shall die, by 
vote of the members, after being nominated by the preacher in 
charge, each voter to be twenty-one years of age, and nine trustees 
to be maintained forever, the preacher to cast the deciding vote in 
all cases of a tie of the votes. This is an ancient and interesting 
document. The Pollard survey had been sold and one-half con- 
veyed to said Caperton and Vawter, who were then owners, under 
a decree of the court of Petersburg, Va., where it seems the Pollard 
heirs resided, and had a decree entered directing a sale of the prop- 
erty. This is an ancient deed for church property, and there is a 
Methodist Church still maintained on this lot — probably the first 
frame church built in the territory of the county. There is also 
an ancient graveyard on this grant, and a monument to the gallant 
Confederate soldier, Mike Foster, will soon be erected nearby by 
the old comrades of this brave man, who have formed the Mike 
Foster Monument Association, of which Allen Ellison is treasurer; 
I. G. Garden, Richard McNeer, Theodore Webb, W. L. Foster and 
others are interested. 

This deed was acknowledged before two justices of the peace, 
Robert Coalter and Conrad Peters, without dates. 

There is another old land grant of a large boundary of land in 

that district granted to Watkins, and which is also divided 

up into small boundaries owned by independent citizen farmers. 
Allen F. Brown lives on this patented land. 

The Bradshaw claim included the lands where Thomas G. 
Lowe, O. C. Fleshman, Albert Bolton and others now live. Brad- 
shaw built a cabin near where Thomas G. Lowe now lives, and was 
killed by the Indians. 

The Boardman patent covered all the region of the Little Wolf 
Creek country, and contained 9,800 acres, all of which, like all 
other patents of any size, has been divided up and is owned by 
great numbers of farmers. The Boardman patent, the Watkins 
patent and the Pollard patent have a common corner, as shown on 
the Haynes map, at a white oak and a chestnut, and the Pollard 
and Boardman patents run from that point to "Wikel's" peach 
orchard, four miles together as a common line to two poplars. 

The oldest land paper I have been able to see is dated February 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 263 



1, 1781, issued by Thomas Jefferson, who was then Governor of 
Virginia, by virtue of a survey of the 6th day of May, 1772, and 
was for sixty-five acres in Botetourt County. 

The land on the opposite side of Greenbrier River at Talcott, 
the Chatting and Bacon farms, was owned by Jeptha Massy, the 
patent bearing date August 15, 1794, and was issued by Henry Lee, 
then Governor of Virginia. Jeptha Massy and his wife moved from 
the eastern shore of Maryland to Keezletown, Virginia, and from 
there to Greenbrier County, and from thence to lands above men- 
tioned, and raised the following named children : Reuben, Moses, 
Jeptha, Henry, John and Jonathan, and Hanna, Lana and Navagal, 
girls. 

Moses Massy was one of the scouts who, on foot with General 
Lewis, made the trip from Point Pleasant through the wilderness 
to notify the people of the Indian marauders, and that they should 
go into the forts at Lewisburg. Later, this land passed to David 
Mathews, the father-in-law of Chas. K. Rollyson. The scouts ar- 
rived at Lewisburg only a few hours before the Indians, and were 
so exhausted from traveling night and day that, arriving at the fort, 
they dropped on the first beds they came to. 

Jeptha Massy built the house now resided in by Mrs. George W. 
Chattin. He and his wife resided there, and at their death were 
buried in the cemetery at Barger's Springs. 

Jonathan Massy came from Philadelphia to Greenbrier County, 
on Muddy Creek, to the Jarretts, to whom he was related. He 
married Hanna Massy, a daughter of Jeptha, and lived and died in 
the present Chattin house, leaving three boys, David, George and 
Alfred, and the following named girls : Margaret, Sarah, Susan, 
Nancy, Laney, Eliza and Miriam J. Miriam J. Massy was the 
grandmother of Nat. Bacon, who now lives near Talcott. She 
married Jacob Fluke, who came to that county from Botetourt 
County, Virginia. He was born in Hagerstown, Maryland. They 
raised four children, William Campbell Fluke, who was killed in 
the fight at Fisher's Hill, Virginia, and was buried at Newmarket, 
Virginia ; George Abraham Fluke, who died from typhoid pneu- 
monia, contracted in the army; John Shanon Fluke, who died of 
consumption, and both were buried at Barger's Springs. Jacob 
Fluke and his wife are also buried at Barger's Springs. Miss Nancy 
Mathews Fluke was the only daughter of Jacob Fluke, and she 
married Robert Carter Bacon, who came to that region on the 23d 
of November, 1853. They were married June 8, 1858. They raised 
two children, Nathaniel Bacon and Mary Jane Bacon. The latter 



264 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



died at maturity in New Mexico, where she had gone for her health. 
Robert C. Bacon is buried at Barger's Springs. He was a man of 
strong intellect and personality, enterprising and farseeing. He 
built the present Bacon's Mill. At the time of the agitation of the 
question of secession of the Southern States he was a strong seces- 
sionist and a violent partisan of the South, believing in the rights 
of secession under the Constitution. 

JOHN WEST LANDS. 

James Welch patented many thousand acres of land in the 
lower end of Mercer and in Pipestem District. This land was 
acquired by Joseph Mandeville by purchase. Mandeville devised 
by will this tract to John West. John West was a bastard son of 
Joseph Mandeville. He lived all of his life in Alexandria, Vir- 
ginia, and died there. He, once in a while, came out and looked 
over his lands in Pipestem, which have been known for many 
years as the West lands. He died, devising the land to Vandalia 
West, and H. O. Cloughton, trustee, held the title for a number of 
years. He was a lawyer in Washington City. Finally he died, 
and the land was conveyed to John E. Reubsam, a doctor in Wash- 
ington, who was unable to keep the taxes paid, and about 1902 
the land was sold and purchased by Kelsoe & Dickey and Robert 
Jenkins, Jr., of Pittsburg. It amounted to about 4,500 acres when 
last sold, consisting of many small tracts, the original patent of 
28,000 acres having been reduced by sale of small tracts until about 
4,500 acres was the remainder, scattered over a large part of the 
district. Welch also had a patent in Raleigh and Wyoming of 
90,000 acres. He devised 10,000 acres to Ellen Mandeville, a natu- 
ral daughter, who afterwards married a Smith, and 10,000 acres 
to Joseph Mandeville, his nephew, and the balance to the said 
natural son, John West. Joseph Mandeville was said to have been 
a direct descendant of Lord Chief Justice Mandeville, of England. 
His nephew, Joseph, lived in Wyoming County on Clear Fork. 
His descendants were unable to maintain the taxes, a considerable 
part of the tract was sold in small parcels, and his descendants 
finally removed to Forest Hill District, where Cleo Mandeville 
died in 1906, nearly one hundred years old. She received a pen- 
sion from the United States Government as a widow of a soldier 
of 1812, her husband having been a soldier in that war. Her son, 
J. W. Mandeville, still lives at Mandeville Post Office. John West 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 265 



lived to be an old man and was a wealthy man, especially in real 
estate and wild lands. West sold his Raleigh lands in 1868, and 
the land is now known as the Maben and Hotchkiss tract, now 
owned by the Western Pocahontas Coal & Lumber Company. 
West died in 1872. 



CHAPTER XV. 



ELECTIONS. 

In other chapters of this narrative I have given the result of 
elections in this county from its organization to the 1st of January, 
1873. I shall, therefore, not in this chapter repeat those results, 
but shall proceed with the next succeeding election, which was 
held on the 13th day of August, 1875, and coming down to the 
present time, with such details as are material and of public no- 
toriety as they may occur to us. 

Conventions and elections in the county have generally been 
fair and' without fraud. The election officers have always been 
universally and scrupulously honest and fair, with the exceptions 
detailed. In the first elections in the county the pernicious and 
corrupting influence of the dollar was unknown. Its use and in- 
fluence in this county can easily be remembered by citizens now 
living who have taken an interest in public affairs. When the 
writer made his first race for election of county superintendent of 
free schools, in the year 1882, his actual outlay in cash was $2.50, 
paid for horse hire, and no money was used on behalf of either can- 
didate. One of the writer's friends, ex-Sheriff Wm. S. Lilly, told 
him after the election of having given a constituent a peck of seed 
potatoes to pay for his time to induce him to go to the polls. 

The use of money first began in the payment of incidental nec- 
essary expenses, and they were originally economical, and such a 
thing as campaign funds was unknown, but at this day an election , 
is not expected to be held without a campaign fund, and out of the 
application of this fund by the parties controlling it have grown 
some strenuous charges and counter allegations by some of our 
politicians of the present generation. 

The use of money and campaign funds in elections is an East- 
ern innovation more dangerous to the welfare and perpetuity 
of the republic and purity of the government and the liberties of 
the great masses of people than any other dangers conceived 
that may threaten or are likely to threaten the existence of the 




OLD BROAD RUN 
Baptist Church. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 267 



present Republican Government of this country — more so than the 
Ku Klux Klans, Force Bills or military supervision. Without it 
bossism would not be possible. Leaders are necessary for all polit- 
ical parties, but the difference between the leaders and the legitimate 
application and the boss is as wide as the pirate of the sea is from 
the legitimate merchantman. 

The campaign funds in this county for the Democratic party 
are practically all provided by the local candidates, and for the 
Republican party by the State Committee. This county has never 
been corrupted nor felt the corrupting influence of money, as is 
charged, and, no doubt, truthfully, in other counties and sections ; 
but in the last few campaigns the candidates and committees have 
learned that the boodler is in the land, and it is a surprising fact 
that there are many men now in this county who swarm after can- 
didates for money as a buzzard after a dead carcass. The thirst 
for the "boodle money" with a certain class of our citizens has 
grown and developed in individuals as a disease grows into the 
animal system. But it is not the majority, and it is not our intelli- 
gent or influential citizens or better class of the citizens who are 
out for "boodle" or sale, and the better or influential citizens of 
both parties look down on the "boodler" as dangerous to his neigh- 
bor and his property, as well as dangerous to his country and his 
government, and is despised as a "varmint" that has to be borne. 
If the "boodler" and the "grafter" could feel the utter contempt in 
which they are held by their neighbors and the public ; if they had 
the respect of a degenerate, they would hide themselves in shame. 

It is also a remarkable fact that there are a number of voters 
who will dog a candidate, demand money and pay for his vote and 
influence. They do not appreciate the dishonor and degradation 
of his acts, and the candidate can not spurn them, because he needs 
their aid. They do not appreciate the moral degeneracy involved 
in the sale of their suffrage. Men will demand money for their 
vote and influence who have property, who are above want, and 
who are in ordinary business affairs honest and responsible for their 
debts, and pay their liabilities. 

There is another class who take the money from both candi- 
dates and from both parties, violate all promises, and still hold up 
their hands in holy horror at ordinary violations of the criminal 
law — pretending to be Christians, moralists, members of the Chris- 
tian Church, and claim their neighbor is not so good as themselves. 
These boodlers and this class of citizens are a stigma and a dis- 



268 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



grace to any community, and are dangerous to the government, 
as much so as the highwayman, and more so. for they make no 
claim to morality. 

Fortunately, this county has been infested with only a small 
proportion of this class of venal and corrupt citizens, and the use 
of money has had but little influence in the general result, although 
it has been so charged and accredited to a much greater extent 
than true; no doubt the charges being made in good faith under 
such honest belief of the parties making the assertions, but the 
writer has for the last twenty years been in a position to know, 
having been more or less actually engaged in all political tights for 
himself or his friends, and he knows whereof and doth write truth- 
fully. 

The life of the candidate, however, under existing conditions at 
this time in this county is made miserable, as well as the parties in 
charge of the respective organizations. The legitimate expenses 
of the campaigns have greatly increased — the employment of speak- 
ers, ''''spellbinders,"'' conveyances, brass bands, hiring halls, buying 
- badges, literature, etc.. so that the party managers are kept busy try- 
ing to make both ends meet without the application of funds to the 
corruption of the voters and the elections. The voter who will sell 
his vote or his influence should be disfranchised : and the time will 
come when public sentiment will become so strong that that char- 
acter of legislation will be enacted, and the hunter for '''boodle 
money'" will hide himself in shame from the face of the earth. 

The first election held in the county not here^fore detailed was 
on the 13th day of August. 1875. which was for school officers. 
C. L. Ellison, of Forest Hill District, was elected superintendent 
of free schools, and held that position for two years, that being the 
term of that office at that time. He executed bond, with James Boyd 
as surety, and took office on the first day of January. 1876. 

The next general election was the historical campaign of 1876. 
in which Samuel J. Tilden was the Democratic candidate for Presi- 
dent, and is claimed to this day to have been elected by the Demo- 
crats, and Rutherford B. Hayes, the Republican candidate, who was 
declared elected, and held the office for four years. Elbert Fowler 
was elected prosecuting attorney; Wm. S. Lilly was elected sheriff, 
with I. G. Carden as his deputy. Mr. Lilly executed bond, with 
R. C. Lilly. Joseph Lilly. Wm. H. Lilly. James E. Foster. James 
Graham and John G. Crockett for the general fund, in the penalty 
of S40.000. To cover the school fund he gave bond in the penalty of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 269 



$25,000, with J. A. Parker, R. C. Lilly and I. G. Carden as sureties. 
John Lilly, known as "Item John," or "Gentleman John," was 
elected assessor; Dr. Benj. P. Gooch, of Hinton, was elected to the 
Legislature. 

We are unable to give the results from this election from the 
fact that no records were made. The returns, along with the bal- 
lots, were required to be sealed up and held by the clerks for one 
year, and then destroyed. No nominations were made, or, if any, 
it was only for a candidate for the Legislature. The opposition to 
Wm. S. Lilly for sheriff was composed of James H. Bledsoe, of 
Green Sulphur Springs, who ran for that office at this election, 
with Wm. P. Hinton for his deputy. S. W. Willey was also a 
candidate, with C. L, Miller for his deputy, each candidate running 
independently. At the preceding election, when Evan Hinton was 
a candidate for sheriff, Joseph Ellis ran with him for deputy; S. W. 
Willey was the opposing candidate, who ran with John K. Withrow 
for his deputy. 

The next election was in the year 1877, for county superintend- 
ent of free schools again. The candidates were D. G. Lilly, of 
Jumping Branch, and Rufus Deeds, and possibly some one else, 
whose name at this time I am unable to ascertain. Mr. Lilly was 
elected and took office for two years, on the first day of January, 
1878. 

The next regular and general election was in 1880, and, so far 
as I am able to ascertain, there were no nominations except for 
the Legislature. Dr. B. P. Gooch was again elected in 1878 for the 
Legislature, being elected for two successive terms as a Democrat. 
In 1880, the Democratic candidate for President was W. S. Han- 
cock against U. S. Grant, Republican, and the results of this elec- 
tion, as stated for those previous, we are unable to ascertain. The 
following named gentlemen were elected: Wm. R. Thompson, for 
prosecuting attorney; the majority I am unable to state. He and 
Elbert Fowler were the respective candidates, neither being nomi- 
nated. The campaign was active and vigorous and the result very 
close, the returns showing Mr. Thompson elected by a small ma- 
jority. A contest was instituted by Mr. Fowler before the county 
court, which decided against him. He appealed to the Supreme 
Court of Appeals, Judge James H. Ferguson representing him in 
that court, Mr. Thompson being represented by Judge Adam C. 
Snyder. The Supreme Court of Appeals reversed the judgment of 
the county court, and required it to canvass the votes, open the 



270 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ballots and proceed to determine the results by hearing the evi- 
dence as to any frauds or irregularities alleged. 

The court proceeded to open the ballots and re-count the vote 
at New Richmond, in which a change of six or seven votes were 
made in favor of Fowler, also the vote from Jumping Branch re- 
counted, the result in that district remaining unchanged, except 
as to one or two votes. The court adjourned, took a recess, and, 
during the noon hour, the friends of the contestants got together and 
compromised, with the agreement that Mr. Thompson should hold 
the office for the remainder of the term, about half of the term 
having already expired, and he pay Mr. Fowler $500.00 and the 
costs of the contest. As I remember, it was not expected by the 
parties, after they got into the contest, to go into the vote at Tal- 
cott precinct — not that it would change the result between Thomp- 
son and Fowler, but because there were possible irregularities at 
that voting place which would change the result as to the member 
of the Legislature, the face of the returns showing N. M. Lowry 
elected by less than ten votes, which was claimed and is possibly 
true, that if the facts had been known, there were sufficient irregu- 
larities to have changed the result, and shown the election of Jona- 
than Lilly. 

THE AGREEMENT. 

This agreement, made and entered into this 20th day of Sep- 
tember, 1883, by and between Elbert Fowler, of the first part, and 
W. R. Thompson and B. Prince, his surety, of the second part, 
witnesseth, That whereas, there is now pending in the County 
Court of Summers County, State of West Virginia, a case contest- 
ing the election for the office of prosecuting attorney for said 
county, for the term commencing on the 1st day of January, 1881, 
to which said Fowler is plaintiff and contestant, and said Thomp- 
son is defendant and contestor. Now, therefore, the said Fowler 
hereby agrees and binds himself to dismiss and discontinue said 
case and disclaim any further right, title or interest to said office 
or to the salary, fees or emoluments thereof for the term aforesaid. 
In consideration whereof, the parties of the second, as principal 
and surety aforesaid, hereby agree and bind themselves to pay to 
said Fowler, on or before the 1st day of July, 1882 the sum of five 
hundred dollars, which sum, however, shall be liable to the extent 
of and there shall be deducted therefrom all payments made, or 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 271 



that may hereafter be made by said Thompson, of costs and dam- 
ages in the prosecution of said case, in the county and circuit court 
of said county and the Supreme Court of Appeals of said State. 

Witness the following signatures and seals, the day and year 
aforesaid. 

ELBERT FOWLER, 
WM. R. THOMPSON, 
B. PRINCE. 

No contest was made as to any office, however, except as to 
prosecuting attorney, and it was impossible to go behind the 
returns as to the vote on candidates for House of Delegates, unless 
there had been a contest. Mr. Lilly was urged to make a contest, 
but declined to do so, and from the information I have received 
from reliable sources, I have no doubt that Jonathan Lilly was 
honestly elected to that office, although filled by N. M. Lowry, his 
opponent. Lowry was the Democratic candidate, and Lilly was 
the Independent Greenback candidate. I was not a voter at that 
time, but I remember very distinctly the charges of fraud. 

In the campaign of 1882 for House of Delegates between Hon. 
S. W. Willey and Captain A. A. Miller, a strong effort was made 
to prove that Mr. Willey was not in good faith a Republican, 
E. H. Peck, W. W. Adams and Dr. B. P. Gooch filing statements 
and affidavits that he was in the convention that nominated Dr. 
Gooch for House of Delegates, and took a part and voted therein. 
Mr. Peck also gave a statement that he took part in the Democratic 
Convention of 1876 ; that he attended the Congressional convention 
of 1876 as a Democrat. Politics were hot in those days, and each 
partisan contested vigorously his party interests, Mr. Willey deny- 
ing that he was ever a Democrat. Personalities were not indulged 
in, and after the elections the candidates were usually friends. Mr. 
Willey had been a very active, energetic man, was a fine cam- 
paigner, and when he became a candidate, it was generally recog- 
nized that a fight was on. He was then, as now, an astute and 
ingenious politician. It was charged as one of the grounds against 
his receiving Republican support that Mr. Willey took part in the 
organization of the Democratic party in 1871 at Pisgah Church with 
N. M. Lowery, and that he was duly elected a delegate to the Con- 
gressional Convention at the old church on New River, and it was 
charged by these partisans that he was secretary of the last Demo- 
cratic Convention prior to 1882. all of which was vigorously denied 



272 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and repudiated by Mr. Willey and his friends, who ran ahead of 
his ticket in this race and always, which demonstrates the folly of 
personalities in politics, and he was never, except in two instances, 
defeated by as many as 100 votes. 

ELECTION OF 1884. 

I am unable to give the entire results of this election. There 
were party nominations made for the first time for all county offices, 
except for prosecuting attorney. 

J. G. Crockett was the Democratic nominee for House of Dele- 
gates, and J. C. James, Republican candidate. Crockett received 
964 votes; James, 864; W. S. Lilly, the Democratic candidate for 
sheriff, received 967 votes ; M. V. Calloway, Independent candidate 
for sheriff, received 1,118 votes; B. L. Hoge, Democratic nominee 
for clerk of the circuit court, received 1,276 votes; Wm. B. Wig- 
gins, 784; E. H. Peck, Democratic candidate for county clerk, 
received 1,231 votes; J. C. Woodson, 871; W. H. Boude, Demo- 
cratic candidate for assessor, 981 votes ; W. C. Dobbins, Republi- 
can, 1,097; M. Smith, Democratic candidate for surveyer, received 
1,130 votes; Joseph Keaton, Republican, 946. There was no nomi- 
nation for the office of prosecuting attorney, there being no Repub- 
lican lawyer in the county. Wm. R. Thompson and James H. 
Miller made a scrub race, Miller receiving 993 votes ; Thompson, 
964 votes, Miller's majority being 29. 

THE ELECTION OF 1888. 

Cleveland was the Democratic candidate for President; Har- 
rison was the Republican candidate for President. Cleveland's vote 
was 1,353; Harrison's, 1,272, making a Democratic majority for 
President of 81. A. N. Campbell was elected judge of the circuit 
court, his vote being 1,367, vs. J. M. McWhorter, Republican, 
whose vote was 1,267. J. W. Johnson was the Democratic nominee 
for the Legislature, and received 1,347 votes; W. C. Dobbins, the 
Republican nominee, received 1,259 votes; James H. Miller, Demo- 
cratic nominee for prosecuting attorney, received 1,613 votes; 
T. G. Mann, Republican nominee, received 993 votes ; O. T. Kesler, 
Democratic nominee for sheriff, received 1,344 votes; S. W. Willey, 
1,265; W. H. Boude, Democratic nominee for assessor, 1,337; J. F. 
Ellison, Republican, 1,279; J. E. Harvey, Democratic nominee for 
assessor, 1,341; Joseph Cox, Republican, 1,237. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 273 



THE ELECTION OF 1890. 

The election of 1890 was an off year. The Democrats nomi- 
nated E. H. Peck for clerk of the county court; B. L. Hoge, clerk 
of- the circuit court; G. W. Hedrick, commissioner of the county 
court; W. R. Thompson, delegate to the Legislature. The Repub- 
licans nominated M. V. Calloway for the Legislature; E. L. Dunn 
for clerk of the county court ; J. C. Woodson for clerk of the circuit 
court, and Joseph Nowlin for commissioner of the county court. 
The Democrats carried the county. Wm. R. Thompson received 
a majority of 443 ; E. H. Peck, a majority of 350; B. L. Hoge, 397; 
George W. Hedrick, 337. 

The question of wet and dry cut some figure in the election of 
commissioner of the county court, Mr. Nowlin being understood to 
be against license, while Mr. Hedrick was for license. It was quite 
an aggressive campaign, both parties making a vigorous fight, and 
circulars and correspondence in the newspapers were resorted to. 

THE ELECTION OF 1892. 

This was an exceedingly active campaign. Grover Cleveland 
made his third race for President on the Democratic ticket, re- 
ceiving 1,632 votes; Benjamin Harrison was the Republican candi- 
date, and received 1,273 votes; James B. Weaver was the Populist 
candidate for President, receiving 38 votes; Bidwell was the Pro- 
hibition candidate, receiving 23 votes ; Wm. A. McCorkle was the 
Democratic nominee for Governor, and received 1,639 votes; Thos. 
E. Davis was the Republican candidate, and received 1,239 votes; 
B. P. Shumate was the Democratic candidate for House of Dele- 
gates, he receiving 1,631 votes; L. G. Lowe was the Republican 
candidate, and received 1,126 votes; J. J. Christian was the Demo- 
cratic candidate for commissioner of the county court, and received 
1,532 votes; John W. Allen was the Republican candidate, and 
received 1,356 votes; Harrison Gwinn was the Democratic candi- 
date for sheriff, and received 1,624 votes; Jos. Nowlin was the 
Republican candidate- for sheriff, and received 1,286 votes; James 
H. Miller was the Democratic candidate for prosecuting attorney, 
and received 1,698 votes; Thos. G. Mann was the Republican can- 
didate for that office, and received 1,187 votes; John E. Harvey 
was the Democratic candidate for surveyor, receiving 1,639 votes, 
and James B. Lavender, Republican candidate, received 1,263 votes; 



274 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Walter H. Boude, Democratic candidate for assessor, received 
1,638 votes; and Wm. H. DeQuaisie, Republican candidate, re- 
ceived 1,279 votes. 

There was in this year a very strenuous race between Wm. R. 
Thompson, for the Democratic nomination for prosecuting- attor- 
ney, and James H. Miller. On the day conventions were held by 
• district meetings called at one place in each district, where the 
voters assembled, and the choice of the voters taken by vote, usu- 
ally by division. Miller received in the primaries throughout the 
county, outside of Greenbrier District, 250 majority. At the court 
house there was great excitement, the brass bands being out, the 
partisan spirit running high, with very decided aggressiveness 
amongst the friends of both candidates. Thompson and Miller 
held a conference, and agreed to divide the vote equally in the 
district, which was accordingly done ; they also agreed to select 
delegates to the various other conventions themselves, each select- 
ing an equal number, so that the matters were amicably adjusted 
between the two factions. 

THE ELECTION OF 1894. 

In the campaign of this year Hon. B. P. Shumate was the Demo- 
cratic candidate for Legislature again, and received 1,352 votes; 
M. J. Cook was the Republican candidate, and received 1.393 votes; 
W. W. Withrow was the Democratic candidate for superintendent 
of free schools, and received 1,348 votes ; Geo. W. Leftwich was the 
Republican candidate, and received l r 427 votes; James A. Graham 
was the Republican candidate for the commissioner of the county 
court, receiving 1,51:1 votes, and J. A. Parker, the Democratic can- 
didate, receiving 1,213 votes; Jos. L. Witt, Populist candidate for 
Legislature, receiving 41 votes ; John D. Alderson being the Demo- 
cratic candidate for Congress voted for at this election, and re- 
ceiving 1,383 votes ; James H. Huling being the Republican can- 
didate, and receiving 1,366 votes: Samuel A. Houston, Populist, 
receiving 48 votes; Jos. D. Logan, Democratic candidate for State 
Senate, 1,378; Thos. P. Davis, Republican, 1,374 votes. 

The Republicans elected each of its candidates and carried the 
county Republican for the first time, as well as the last time in its 
history, and was a great surprise and astonishment to the Demo- 
crats, who had two years previously carried the county by some- 
thing like 400 majority. The dissatisfaction at the Cleveland second 
administration and the good-sized campaign fund furnished to the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 275 



Republicans by Senator S. B. Elkins contributed to the overthrow 
of the Democratic party at. this election. 

A good deal of amusement and some practical jokes were de- 
rived from this campaign. J. J. Swope, now editor of the "Wyo- 
ming Mountaineer," a newspaper, was very active on behalf of 
the Republican ticket. Signs were found posted around town on 
the morning of the election, caricaturing Mr. Swope, and on one 
occasion his office was invaded, a dummy prepared and set up at 
his table, representing the judge preparing an important legal docu- 
ment, with pen in its hand, in deep study. A box of campaign 
liquor was eliminated therefrom, and disposed of by the Democratic 
campaigners. Col. Swope secured a large box of long-bottled 
spirits from his protege, Hon. T. P. Davis, the Republican candi- 
date for State Senate, who was elected in the district, largely due 
to Col. Swope's persistent and energetic efforts in his behalf. 

THE ELECTION OF 1896. 

W. J. Bryan, the Democratic candidate for President, received 
1,739 votes; Wm. McKinley, Republican, received 1,600 votes; 
Weaver, on the Populist ticket, received eight votes ; Levering, 
Prohibitionist, received sixteen votes; C. C. Watts, Democratic 
candidate for Governor, 1,743 votes; G. W. Atkinson, Republican 
candidate for Governor, 1,600 votes; A. N. Campbell, for judge of 
the circuit court, 1,728 votes; J. M. McWhorter, 1,620 votes; Dr. 
J. T. Hume, for Legislature, received 1,713 votes; Jonathan Lilly, 
1,699, Mr. Lilly being the same candidate who ran for the Legis- 
lature against N. M. Lowry many years before, and, as Greenback 
candidate, receiving the Republican and Greenback vote ; James 

H. George, for sheriff, received 1,736 votes; S. W. Willey, Repub- 
lican candidate for sheriff, received 1,610; W. H. Boude, Demo- 
cratic candidate for clerk of the circuit court, received 1,750 votes; 
L. M. Peck, Republican candidate, 1,588; J. M. Ayres, Democratic 
candidate for clerk of the county court, received 1,810 votes; M. V. 
Calloway, Republican candidate for clerk of the county court, 
received 1,544 votes; James H. Miller, Democratic candidate for 
prosecuting attorney, received 1,828 votes; J. A. Oldfield, Repub- 
lican candidate for prosecuting attorney, received 1,578 votes; 
J. H. Maddy, Democratic candidate for assessor, received 1,735 
votes; C. L. Woodrum, Republican candidate for assessor, received 

I, 603 votes; A. L. Campbell, Democratic candidate for surveyor, 
received 1,730 votes; J. B. Lavender, Republican candidate for 



276 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY-, WEST VIRGINIA. 



surveyor, received 1,599 votes ; Joseph Lilly, Democratic candidate 
for commissioner of the county court, received 1,787 votes; W. G. 
Barger, Republican candidate, received 1,559 votes ; thus the county 
came back to its Democratic moorings, electing each of its candi- 
dates by small majorities, as will be observed. 

J. A. Oldfield, the Republican candidate for prosecuting attor- 
ney, was a young lawyer who had located in the county about two 
years before, and was editor of the "Hinton Republican." He was 
supported in this race by Mr. Frank Lively, who was then aligned 
'with the Democratic party. The question of "wet and dry" again 
was an issue between the candidates for commissioner of the county 
court. The campaign was an extremely active one by all candi- 
dates, as well as the respective committees, one of the features of 
the campaign being the Republican candidates for county offices, 
consisting of Messrs. Jonathan Lilly. L= M. Peck. J. B. Lavender 
and J. A. Oldfield, who got together and went throughout the 
county, holding meetings, advertised in advance. They would go 
from schoolhouse to schoolhouse, and at the meetings at night 
- would each make speeches, have a revival, and then proceed the 
next day to the next appointment. Some amusing incidents have 
been told the writer by these candidates concerning their cam- 
paign tour. It was especially novel to L. M. Peck, it being his 
first campaign experience. 

This was the great campaign of the Free Silver and the Gold 
standard, the special feature being the great fight made by the 
Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company for the Republican ticket, 
from president to constable, led in this county by Mr. J. W. Knapp, 
division superintendent, who had. prior to that time, claimed to 
have been a Democrat. The president of the road, Mr. M. E. In- 
■ galls, was brought here on two occasions, made speeches to the 
employees at the opera house, and one on the baseball campus : 
was driven through the town in a chariot and four, followed by 
many horsemen and footmen, carrying banners and flags, an ex- 
ceedingly strenuous effort being made to carry this county for the 
Republican or Gold Standard ticket. The Democrats were ex- 
ceedingly patriotic, enthusiastic, and especially those of the railway 
laborers, who believed in the Democratic cause, and that .of Free 
Silver ; who stood to their guns regardless of the great pressure 
brought by the head of the railway company. Y\ nile the country 
went Republican, largely, securing the election of Major McKinley, 
it was a matter of great pride and rejoicing to the local Democracy 
that they saved Summers County from the wreck, under the cir- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



277 



cumstances. Delegations of voters were furnished free transpor- 
tation and, a great number of them visited Major McKinley, the 
Republican candidate, at Canton. Ohio, without money or pay. 

THE ELECTION OF 1898. 

This was another off year. Judge David E. Johnston, the Demo- 
cratic candidate for Congress, received 1.572 votes: Wm. Seymour 
Edwards. Republican, 1.276: Hon. C. W. Osenton, Democratic 
candidate for State Senate, received 1,574 votes : C. J. Andrews, 
Republican. 1,278 votes B. P. Shumate. Democratic candidate for 
House of Delegates, 1,584 votes: M. J. Cook, Republican, 1,258; 
J. J. Christian, Democratic candidate for commissioner of the county 
court, 1,552 votes: Joseph Xowlin, Republican, 1,253 votes; H. F. 
Kesler, Democratic candidate for county superintendent of free 
schools, 1,598 votes: D. G. Wiseman, Republican, 1,241 votes. 

This was the second race made by Hon. B. P. Shumate against 
Hon. M. J. Cook. Mr. Cook having defeated Mr. Shumate in 1894. 
They again made the race in 1898. in which Mr. Shumate defeated 
Mr. Cook, this being the third race Mr. Shumate had made for the 
office, and which position he filled for two terms acceptably to his 
constituents. Judge David E. Johnston was elected to Congress over 
Mr. Edwards, although the district was largely Republican. This 
Congressional campaign was conducted by James H. Miller, as 
chairman of the Democratic Congressional Committee, and' for the 
success of Judge Johnston, and he received many compliments from 
his political associates and from the Democratic press throughout 
the State, which, no doubt, largely contributed to his nomination 
for Auditor of the State at a later date. 

At this election. C. W. Garten. Democrat, was elected president 
of the Board of Education of Forest Hill District, over J. A. Wood- 
rum, Republican, by 34 majority : M. R. Wjckline, Republican, for 
member of the Board of Education from that district, was elected 
over Rev. W. F. Hank. Democrat, by a majority of three. In Green- 
brier District. Howard Templeton. editor of the "'Independent Her- 
ald/-' Democrat, received 548 votes, over William M. Puckett, Re- 
publican, who received 421 votes : for member of the Board of Edu- 
cation of that district, A. E. Miller, Democrat, received 567 votes, 
over James E. Meadows, Republican, who received 395 votes, Mil- 
ler's majority being 172. In Green Sulphur District, for president of 
the Board of Education, John H. Tincher, Republican candidate, 
received 224 votes, against 175 for E. W. Duncan. Democrat, Tinch- 



278 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



er's majority being 49. For member of the Board of Education, 
John A. Cales, Republican, received 211 votes to 190. by John A. 
George, Democrat, Cales's majority being 21. This district has been 
in the habit of giving a large Republican majority for many years. 

New Richmond, Brooks and Meadow Creek precincts are Re- 
publican, while Green Sulphur precinct is always Democratic. 
Brooks precinct being very close, sometimes a tie. and sometimes 
one or two majority for the Democrats, and sometimes one or two 
majority for the Republicans. 

In Pipestem District, for president of the Board of Education, 
B. D. Trail. Democrat, received 206 votes, and had no opposition 
for member of the Board of Education: E. E. Angell. Democrat, 
received 199 votes, to 101 for J. I. Farley. Republican. Angell's 
majority being 98; there being a vacancy in the office of justice of 
the peace in that district. C. W. Holdren, Democrat, received 210 
votes : for constable, S. P. AYeatherford, Democrat, received 203 
votes over C. M. Vest, Republican, who received 95 votes. 

In Talcott District, for president of Board of Education. Dr. J. 
W. Ford, Democrat, received 257 votes, and G. P. Meadows, Repub- 
lican, 148 votes: Ford's majority, 109. For member of the Board 
of Education. A. P. Pence. Democrat, received 227 votes: 176 
votes received by Charles H. Graham. Republican: Pence's ma- 
jority being 51. 

In Jumping Branch District, A. H. Mann. Democrat, received 
238 votes, while Thomas M. Cooper received 203 votes for president 
of the Board of Education. Mann's majority being 35. For member 
of the board, L. A. Meador, who was the son of ex-Clerk Allen H. 
Meador, received 238 votes, and S. D. Lilly. Republican. 199. giving 
Meador a majority of 39 votes. 

This Mr. Lewis Meador was a most excellent citizen, residing 
on Madam's Creek, and was elected justice of the peace for that 
district at the election of 1904, but before a single case had been 
tried by him, he was taken sick, from which illness he died, while 
quite a young and useful man. 

THE ELECTION OF 1900. 

The second race between YVm. J. Bryan and Wm. McKinley 
was fought out in 1900. the Republicans carrying the elections 
throughout the country, and especially in West Virginia by an 
increased majority. James H. Miller, of this county, having been 
nominated at the Parkersburg Convention in June for auditor, be- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 279 



came the candidate of the Democratic party against Hon. Arnold 
C. Scherr, of Mineral County. He was also elected chairman of 
the State Democratic Committee, which required practically all of 
his time from the first day of July until the election, at headquar- 
ters in Charleston, giving but very little, if any, more time to Sum- 
mers County than he did to each of the other counties of the State. 
The results of that election are as follows : 

Bryan, Democratic candidate for President, received 1,822 votes. 



McKinlev, Republican " " " " 1,750 

Gaines, Republican " Congress, 1,751 

Johnston, Democratic " 1,826 

White, Republican " Governor, 1,748 

Holt, Democratic 1,831 

Scherr, Republican " Auditor, 1,637 

Miller, Democratic " " " " 1,930 

McClung, Democratic " " State Senate, " 1,832 

Miller, Republican " " " " 1,740 

Eubanks, Republican " House of Del. " 1,768 

Bryant, Democratic 1,805 

Graham, Republican " Sheriff, 1,751 

Ewart, Democratic 1,794 

Lively, Republican " " Pros. Atty., " 1,785 

Read, Democratic 1,765 

Lilly, Republican " " Assessor, 1,737 

Ferrell, Democratic 1,880 

Barker, Republican " Surveyor, 1,747 

Campbell, Democratic " 1,819 

Grimmett, Republican " " Com. Co. Ct., " 1,735 

Hinton, Democratic " " " " " " 1,835 



In this campaign there was a very active contest for the Demo- 
cratic nomination for sheriff, the fight being between H. Ewart, 
with J. D. Bolton, W. R. Neeiy, W. W. Gwinn, E. E. Angell and 
I. G. Carden, as his deputies, against Chas. H. Lilly, with Jordan 
Keatly, Geo. W. Hedrick, E. B. Lilly and W. E. Burdette his 
deputies. The contest was a hard-fought one, Mr. Ewart winning 
by a creditable majority. For prosecuting attorney, the race for 
the nomination was made between C. A. Clark and T. N. Read, 
which was also a very active contest, Mr. Read winning by a con- 
siderable majority. The fight, however, within the party did not 
result in desertion from its ranks, the defeated candidates not bolt- 



280 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ing the nominations, although there was considerable soreness 
exhibited, and the results of an unfortunate conflict within the party 
lines was felt throughout the campaign and showed in the results 
at the polls. The Republicans had no contest for nominations, and 
in this election were as a unit practically in support of their respec- 
tive candidates. 

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company did not take a de- 
cided stand in this campaign. The city of Hinton was visited dur- 
ing the campaign by Wm. J. Bryan, the Democratic candidate for 
President, and by Theodore Roosevelt, the Republican candidate 
for Vice-President. The visit of Mr. Bryan to the city of Hin- 
ton was one of the events of its history. Never before or since has 
there been a congregation of people within its borders to in any 
way compare to the crowd assembled to hear Mr. Bryan. Voters 
came from all of the adjoining counties. Two voters, Messrs. 
George Canterbury and Brooks, a blacksmith, rode through the 
country from Oceana, in Wyoming County, a distance of eighty 
miles, taking them four days to come and return. A great number 
.came from Greenbrier, Raleigh and Fayette Counties; some from 
as far west as Charleston and Huntington. Mr. Bryan came on a 
special train arranged for by the chairman of the Democratic State 
Committee, and was to have arrived early in the afternoon, but 
leaving Huntington at eight o'clock, where Mr. Bryan made his 
first speech, stops were made all along the railroad, so that Mr. 
Bryan had made twelve speeches before he arrived at Hinton, about 
six o'clock, speaking an hour ; he then went on to Ronceverte the 
same evening and made the fourteenth speech. 

The crowd waited persistently and patiently ; the streets were 
filled with an immense crowd, it being estimated that not less than 
10,000 people were m the city. The eating-houses, hotels and gro- 
ceries enjoyed the largest custom ever had on a day. 

The crowd to hear President Roosevelt, then candidate for Vice- 
President on the ticket with Major McKinley, was not so immense, 
there being an estimated crowd of 2,000 people, his meeting not 
having been advertised so well, and there not being such a desire 
to see or hear him at that time. 

Early in this campaign, Hon. J. A. DeArmand, the distinguished 
Democratic Congressman from Missouri, addressed the people at 
the court house. In the campaign of 1898, the Hon. Joseph Bailey, 
now the distinguished Senator from Texas, addressed the people 
at the instance of the Democratic leaders at the opera house in 
Hinton. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, 



WEST VIRGINIA. 



281 



THE ELECTION OF 1902. 

In 1902. James H. Miller, Democrat, of this county, was the 
nominee of the Democratic party for Congress, having been nomi- 
nated by acclamation, and, at the earnest request of his party asso- 
ciates, having accepted it, received 1955 votes. Hon. Joseph H. 
Gaines, the Republican nominee, received 1318 votes; Wm. H. 
McGinnis, Democratic nominee for State Senate, received 1759 
votes; John M. McGrath, Democrat, received 1,763 votes; M. F. 
Matheney. Republican, received 1,522 votes; Alt Ballard, Repub- 
lican, received 1.519 votes, there being two Senators under the re- 
districting of the State to be elected for State Senate, one for the 
short term of two years, and one for the full term of four years. 
Messrs. McGinnis and Matheney, both of Raleigh County, were 
declared elected, Mr. McGinnis, the son of Hon. James H. McGin- 
nis, drawing the long term, and Mr. Matheney drawing the short 
term; M. M. Warren, Democrat, for House of Delegates, received 
1,690 votes; Geo. Wiseman, Republican, for House of Delegates, 
received 1,595 votes ; Walter H. Boude, for clerk of the circuit court, 
received 1,821 votes; Robert Lilly, Republican, 1,439; Joseph 
M. Meador, Democrat, for clerk of the county court, received 1,826 
votes; E. H. Peck, Republican, 1,433 votes ; George W. Lilly, Demo- 
crat for superintendent of free schools, received 1,778 votes against 
Wm. M. Jones, who received 1,467 votes ; Harry Haynes, Democrat, 
for commissioner of the county court, received 1,747 votes, and L. 
W. Farley, Republican, received 1,530 votes, the Democrats electing 
each of their candidates by the following majorities: Miller, for 
Congress, carried the county by 637 ; McGinnis, 240; McGrath, 241 ; 
Warren, 95; Boude, 382 ; Meador. 393; Lilly, 311; Haynes, 217. 

Hon. Joseph H. Gaines, however, was elected to Congress by a 
majority of about 2,500, the district being largely Republican. 

THE ELECTION OF 1904. 

The Democratic candidate for President, Alton B. Parker, re- 
ceived 1,937 votes; Roosevelt, Republican, 1,702 votes; for Con- 
gress, Henry B. Davenport, Democrat, 2,010; J. H. Gaines, Repub- 
lican, 1,622; John J. Cornwell, Democratic candidate for Governor, 
2,062; Wm. M. O. Dawson, Republican, 1,558: A. C. Harrison, 
Democrat, for State Senate, 2,026; Ballard, Republican, 1,611; 
Frank Lively, Republican, for judge of the circuit court, 1,237; Jas. 



■ 



282 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



H. Miller, Democrat, 2,430; D. C. Gallagher, Democrat, for House 
of Delegates, 2,011; Charles Tinder, Republican, 1,628; A. J. 
Keatly, Democrat, for sheriff, 2,138; P. H. Brown, Republican, 

I, 506; R. F. Dunlap, Democrat, for prosecuting attorney, 2,043; 
A. R. Heflin, Republican, 1,596; L. M. Neely, Jr., for assessor, Dem- 
ocrat, 1,978; Anderson, Republican, 1,523; W. O. Farley, Democrat, 
for commissioner of the county court, 2,020; Harvey, Re- 
publican, 1,618; A. L. Campbell, Democrat, surveyor, 1,976; J. L. 
Barker, Republican, 1,621. 

This was a very hard-fought campaign, especially for the office 
of circuit judge, the Democratic candidate having no opposition 
for the nomination, the other Democrats who had been spoken of 
in connection with the position having generously withdrawn, 
leaving a clear field for him. 

For the Republican nomination, Major James H. McGinnis, of 
Raleigh ; I. C. Christian, of Wyoming ; Messrs. T. G. Mann and 
Frank Lively, of the same city (Hinton), were spoken of for the 
nomination, but as the campaign progressed the candidates all 
dropped out, except Messrs. Lively and Mann, and the race became 
personal, aggressive and determined. The faction known as the 
Graham faction, or '''old-timers," taking the part of Mr. Mann, and 
the "Blue Pencil Brigade," or Willey faction, taking the part of 
Mr. Lively. Before the date for the nomination Mr. Mann with- 
drew his name as a candidate, and Mr. Lively was nominated by 
acclamation, and went before the people with a large faction of the 
party opposed to him, with disastrous results, as the returns show. 

There have been many political and other meetings of the people 
in the county, at which distinguished speakers and orators have 
addressed the people. 

Before the formation of the county the custom of political meet- 
ings to discuss the leading issues of the day had begun to be held, 
directly before and during the political campaign, but within the 
territory of the county, prior to 1870, but few meetings of this 
character had been held, even during the agitation of secession, 
there were but few public discussions and but little public 
speechmaking, the question of public interest being usually 
discussed at religious meetings held at the churches once or twice 
a month, on Saturdays and Sundays. At the "log-rollings," "fence- 
buildings," "corn-shuckings," the former being occasions when the 
people of the neighborhood would meet on a day invited, all the 
neighbors coming in to aid in grubbing out and fencing a piece of 
"new land," or rolling the logs thereon into piles convenient for 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 283 



burning; in the spring time preparing it for a cornfield, or in the 
fall to shuck out the season's corn crop before snowfall, after which 
the young ladies and gentlemen would secure a "fiddler" in the 
neighborhood, and "trip the light fantastic toe" until a late hour 
in the night. Each farmer in the community was expected to have 
one of these gatherings once in a year, and in one day prepare a 
field for crop. And this was greatly in vogue in the early settle- 
ment of the country, and the men for miles would come in to the 
"gathering," and a large part of the wilderness was cleared in this 
way. Frequently, the women folks would meet at the same time to 
do sewing, have a "quilting" or a "skutching," and aid the house- 
wife, while the men were aiding the men in the fields and the woods. 

Those were good old times, when neighbors were neighbors, 
indeed, and there was not the modern disposition to selfishness now 
in many cases exhibited. This continued up to the present, but is 
very largely a custom of the past. The writer, when a boy, attended 
many of these good neighborly affairs, and grubbed all day, or 
"log-rolled" to help his father's good neighbor. The "musters" 
were once a month, when the men within the age fixed by statute for 
military service were required to meet once a month to receive 
military training, prepare themselves for service in the army in the 
event of being called upon by their country. Every man physically 
able within the military age being prepared for a soldier, and, no 
doubt, this preparation tended to make the soldiers of the Civil 
War of four years between the States, aided materially in giving 
the country the best armies that ever went to war. Universal 
militia service ended with this war. 

After the war political meetings began to be held in this region, 
and at which times some speakers of note would be produced to 
discuss the "issues of the day." 

The first meeting of this character held in the county of which 
[ have any information was at Green Sulphur Springs, in 1868, 
-during the Grant and Seymour campaign. A barbecue was held in 
the bottom, on the exact ground were Dr. E. E. Noel's fine residence 
is now located, the plan originating with the distinguished phy- 
sician and surgeon, Dr. Samuel Williams, an ardent Southerner 
and Democrat, and, after advertising the meeting for thirty days, 
a beef was provided by Sheriff H. Gwinn, and the meeting held, 
the greatest event in the history of this section. A large United 
States flag was made by the ladies ; everybody came, men, women 
and children, for miles and miles around. Tables were set out in 
the grove, people bringing in baskets of food, and a regular holiday 



284 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



celebrated. Captain R. F. Dennis, then practicing law at Lewis- 
burg, and in his prime; Colonel B. H. Jones, another soldier and 
lawyer of Lewisburg, and Hon. Edmund Sehon, a young attorney 
then located in the same town, were the orators of the occasion, and 
they occupied the larger part of the day, the meeting breaking up 
just in time for the people to return to their abodes. The meeting 
was Democratic, and the orators advocated the election of the Dem- 
ocratic candidate for President, Horatio Seymour, then Governor 
of New York State, and B. Grats Brown, of Missouri, for Vice- 
President. It was a great occasion. After this there was no polit- 
ical campaign without political discussions, and sometimes, but not 
frequently, joint discussions. 

The city of Hinton has had some noted speakers and some 
famous meetings, including the wonderful Bryan meeting of the 
campaign of 1906. In October he passed over the C. & O. Railway 
by special train provided by the chairman of the Democratic State 
Executive Committee of West Virginia. The train of five cars 
left Huntington between eight and nine o'clock, after Mr. Bryan 
had delivered an address to a great crowd. The train stopped, and 
Mr. Bryan spoke at Hurricane, St. Albans, Charleston, East Bank, 
HandFey, Montgomery, Hawk's Nest, Thurmond and Hinton, all 
short speeches from the rear platform of the rear car, except at 
Huntington, Thurmond and Hinton and other points, when he 
left the train, making set speeches from platforms improvised for 
the occasion. After his speech at Hinton, his train passed on to 
Washington, the only other speaking stop being at Ronceverte. 

At Hinton, people came for 100- miles on horseback, in 
wagons and by foot; one gentleman, Mat Belcher, came from 
Bluefield, a horseback ride of two days, in going and re- 
turning, in order to hear their leader proclaim the doctrines 
of Free Silver. The city was crowded with such a mass of hu- 
manity as was never seen before, and, likely, never again. The 
streets were crowded. It was impractical to move from one 
section of the town to another. The train, of course, was belated 
by reason of the numerous stops. The town was literally eaten 
out ; the groceries, bakeries, hotels, restaurants and eating-houses 
were "cleaned out" of eatables until it was a matter of impossibility 
to get a square meal, by reason of the long delay. Many came in 
the night before, which required food for three meals on the noted 
day. A wonderful congestion of people was witnessed at the rail- 
way station when the train arrived, by reason of the great desire 
to see the "orator of the Platte." He had to be practically carried 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 285 



through the crowd to a carriage, where a procession was formed, 
with brass bands, flags, etc., and made a short march out the prin- 
cipal street to the public school building, and thence to the court 
house park, where the great commoner proclaimed the faith of his 
party, which required an even hour for its delivery, and where a 
platform was constructed under the supervision of Hon. Charles 
A. Clark, chairman of the County Democratic Executive Com- 
mittee. 

There were various estimates of the number composing the 
great crowd. It is impossible to make an approximately correct 
estimate, but 10,000 souls would not be an overestimate, we firmly 
believe. 

During the same campaign, President Roosevelt, then the Re- 
publican nominee and candidate for Vice-President, visited the 
county, passing through on a special train. His meeting was not 
well advertised, it not being generally known that he would speak 
in Hinton. The Democrats tendered him the use of their platform, 
and a large meeting was held, however, regardless of the want of 
notice, and the town will ever be proud of having had the honor of 
a visit from so great and distinguished a citizen, the greatest and 
best President of the United States since the death of Abraham 
Lincoln. 

During the campaign of 1900, the Honorable Charles Emory 
Smith, a member of President McKinley's cabinet, spoke at the 
court house in Hinton. 

In the campaign of 1904, Hon. Henry Gassaway Davis, the 
Democratic candidate for Vice-President on the ticket with Judge 
Alton B. Parker, spoke from the front porch of the Y. M. C. A., 
in Hinton, after dark, to an immense crowd of the people when 
passing through the county by special train, campaigning. Hon. 
John T. McGraw, then chairman of the Democratic State Executive 
Committee, the brilliant Democratic leader, accompanied Mr. Davis, 
and also addressed the people. 

Hon. Steven B. Elkins, United States Senator, and a son-in-law 
of Hon. Henry G. Davis, and a distinguished citizen, spoke to an 
immense crowd in Parker's Opera House, in 1896, as did also M. E. 
Ingalls, the president of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, 
claiming to be a Democrat, but to be a "Gold Democrat," was sup- 
porting Hon. Wm. McKinley. He spoke on one occasion at the 
Parker Opera House, and on another at the baseball park, on the 
old Ballangee place. The Republican Committee took him in 
charge, secured a carriage and four horses, and conveyed him over 
the town as a conquering hero. Mr. Ingalls was exceedingly popu- 



286 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



lar with our people by reason of his apparent friendliness toward 
the city, but they did not go to the extent of following his appeals 
to vote against their convictions. 

A very interesting joint discussion was had during the campaign 
of 1896 between Gen. J. W. St. Clair, the brilliant attorney of the 
neighboring county of Fayette, and Hon. Pat McCall, the latter, in 
some respects, having the better of the meeting by reason of mis- 
information had by Gen. St. Clair in regard to the character of 
bonds issued and secured by the mortgage of the C. & O. Railway 
Company. This great meeting was held under a tent spread in the 
jail yard by the Republicans for use during the campaign. 

Another distinguished joint debate on political issues was held 
in the court house, and was had between Hon. John A. Preston, the 
Lewisburg attorney and Democrat, and Hon. Samuel C. Burdette, 
attorney and Republican, of Charleston, W. Va., and now judge of 
the Kanawha Circuit. 

Judge David E. Johnston, of Mercer County, as candidate for 
Congress, spoke, during his canvass for Congress in 1898, at Park- 
- er's Opera House, as did also Hon. Wm. Seymour Edwards, his 
Republican opponent, and Hon. Joseph H. Gaines in the second 
canvass in 1900, of Judge Johnston for that office. 

W e doubt if a more brilliant orator ever honored the county 
with his presence than the Hon. Henry S. Walker, native West 
Virginian, now dead, not excepting Mr. Bryan. His services were 
secured by the Democrats, when available, during each political 
campaign. I have heard him on numerous occasions, and his elo- 
quence never became stale and was not surpassed. Had he had the 
opportunities, he would, in the opinion of many, have gone down 
in history and to posterity as one of the greatest orators of this 
whole land. 

Hon. John Edward Kenna, the last Democratic United States 
Senator elected in this State, and who died in office, was a favorite 
campaign speaker to Summers County citizens, although he lost a 
large part of his popularity in the county prior to his death by 
reason of the ^position taken by him in that most unfortunate, case 
of The State vs. J. S. Thompson, tried on an indictment for the 
killing of Elbert Fowler, but he was only performing an entirely 
legitimate and honorable duty in defending his client, as well as 
kinsman. 

Col. James W. Davis was a familiar speaker in the Republican 
cause, as was also Col. T. G. Mann, a lawyer of the county, and a 
native of the good old mother of counties — Greenbrier. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 287 

One of the most enterprising political speeches ever delivered in 
the county was in the Parker Opera House in 1898, by the great 
Democratic Senator from Texas, Hon. Joseph Weldon Bailey, then 
a member of Congress from that State, and who has recently made 
a history-making speech on the Railway Rate bill, now pending in 
Congress. 

Hon. J. W. Ball, a member of Congress, also from Texas, spoke 
at the new court house in 1902, from the Democratic standpoint. 
Hon. Wm. DeArmand, of Missouri; Turner, the iceman, of New 
York ; Senator Butler, of South Carolina, have all spoken at Hinton. 

Hon. Wm. M. O. Dawson, the present Governor of the State, 
delivered a speech in the court house in 1904, he then being the 
Republican candidate for that office. 

Hon. John J. Cornwell, the Democratic candidate for Governor 
in 1904, also spoke at the court house during that memorable cam- 
paign in which the tax reform was then agitated, Mr. Dawson being 
a great and sincere advocate of tax reform along the lines adopted 
by the Republican party of the State. 

Hon. Chas. W. Osenton, of Fayette County, has frequently come 
to the aid of the Democracy, and has been heard from the forum in 
its behalf on many occasions. 

Hon. Joseph Holt Gaines, who has been the Republican member 
of Congress from this district for the last six years, and an able 
champion of the doctrines of that party, has been frequently heard 
throughout the county. 

Dr. John J. LafTerty, the eminent Christian editor, preacher and 
lecturer, delivered one of his famous lectures in the old Methodist 
Church in Hinton. 

Hon. C. Wood Dailey, one of the leading lawyers and orators 
of the State, has made political speeches on behalf of the Democratic 
party at Talcott and Hinton, in the campaigns of 1892 and 1896. 

Judge James H. Brown, of the Charleston Bar, when a candi- 
date for Congress in the Third District, and Hon. Wm. P. Hupbard 
and Geo. C. Sturgis, able representatives of the Republican doc- 
trines, have argued their cause before the people in the old court 
house, as well as Hon. A. B. Fleming, in his memorable contest 
as the Democratic nominee for the governorship in 1888, with the 
ablest exponent of Republican principles ever produced in the State, 
General Nathan Goff, Jr., now judge of the United States Court. 
It was over this election there grew the famous contest for that 
office before the Legislature of 1889, in which the vote of this 
county was to some extent brought in question. The, majority on 



288 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the returns was very small for General Goff, and Judge Fleming 
contested before the Legislature. A number of illegal votes were 
alleged to have been cast in this county by both parties, and they 
were included in the contest notices. Proof was taken by Colonel 
T. G. Mann, as attorney on behalf of the Republican candidate, 
General Goff, and James H. Miller, as attorney for the Democratic 
candidate, Judge Fleming. Depositions were taken as to some 
votes at New Richmond, Meadow Creek, and two or three, at Hin- 
ton, practically all of them being Republican votes who were colored 
construction laborers on the C. & O. Railway. All the depositions 
and proofs taken were on behalf of the Democrats. When it came 
to the proofs by the Republicans, no evidence was taken by them to 
show any illegal Democratic votes. It was clearly proven that 
some few illegal colored votes were cast at Meadow Creek and 
New Richmond, and that they voted for General Goff. These votes 
were so clearly proven illegal that no question was raised as to 
their illegality, and they were voted to be thrown out and not 
counted for General Goff by the Republican as well as the Demo- 
cratic members of the committee and Legislature. 

Hon. John Duffy Alderson, of Nicholas County, six years a mem- 
ber of Congress as a Democrat from the Third District, frequently, 
during his Congressional career, addressed the people of the county, 
as did also C. P. Snydor, who was a member of Congress for two 
terms before Mr. Alderson. 

There have been conventions held in Hinton for the nomination 
of candidates for Congress. 

Hon. Joseph H. Gaines has been twice nominated in Hinton ; 
Hon. John D. Alderson twice nominated there ; Hon. Wm. Seymour 
Edwards once, and at the same time that Mr. Gaines was nominated, 
there being two Republican Conventions, with two sets of delegates 
and two sets of spellbinders, but Mr. Edwards afterwards with- 
drew, and gave Mr. Gaines a clear field, who was elected over 
Hon. Henry B. Davenport, the Democratic candidate. This was 
in 1904. 

Hon. A. N. Campbell was twice nominated at Hinton as the 
Democratic candidate for judge of the circuit court. Hon. Wm. H. 
McGinnis and John McGrath were nominated as the Democratic 
candidates for the State Senate in 1902 and Honorables Alt. Bal- 
lard and M. F. Matheney, the Republican candidates for the same 
office at the same election, were also nominated at the same place, 
in the court house at Hinton, as were Captain A. C. Harrison, the 
Democratic candidate in 1904, and Hon. Alt. Ballard in the same 
year. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 289 



The convention was held in Hinton at the Parker Opera House 
in 1896, to send delegates to the Democratic National Convention 
at Chicago, when General J. W. St. Clair, of Fayette County; Major 
James A. Nighbert, of Logan, and James H. Miller, of Summers, 
were elected delegates to that convention that nominated Wm. J. 
Bryan for the Democratic candidate for President in 1896. 

The first convention for the nomination for candidates for office 
to be voted for outside of the county was a Democratic Congres- 
sional Convention held at the court house, to nominate a candidate 
for the Third West Virginia District, when it extended to the Ohio 
River. The candidates were John Edward Kenna, of Charleston, 
Charles Edward Hogg, of Point Pleasant, and Eustace Gibson, of 
Huntington. Each of the candidates withdrew, and Mr. Kenna was 
nominated and Mr. Hogg was nominated for Presidential elector. 

One of the first political speeches ever made in the county was 
by Hon. Romeo H. Freer, then of Charleston, supporting the Re- 
publican candidates, at the court house. He was afterwards elected 
judge of his circuit, to Congress, and Attorney-General of the State. 
This was back in the seventies. 

Hon. Henry G. Davis spoke in the court house in 1877, soon after 
its completion, and when a candidate for the United States Senate. 
Hon. Frank Hereford, of Monroe County, was also a familiar 
speaker in the county during his political career in Congress and 
the United States Senate. 

Hon. John W. Arbuckle, of Greenbrier County, has frequently 
addressed the people of the county in support of the Democratic 
candidates, and never failed to respond to their call. He is of the 
ancient Greenbrier family of the name, whose ancestor was the 
great pioneer and scout at Point Pleasant in 1774. 

During aggressive political campaigns, it has been the practice 
of both the leading political parties, Democratic and Republican, to 
have political speakings by either local or imported orators, at 
practically all of the schoolhouses and voting places in the counties, 
posting notices in advance, and on the dates advertised ; the local 
candidates and the speakers attend and discuss the issues as well 
as the merits of the various candidates. These meetings are held 
under the auspices of the county executive committees of the re- 
spective parties, and are usually held in the afternoons and even- 
ings. This custom has largely come into vogue within the last 
ten years. 

President Wm. McKinley visited the city once while President, 
but only stopped a few minutes on the platform of his train, when 
he was greeted by a great concourse of people. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



SCHOOLS. 

The free school system was in operation in this State at the 
date of the formation of this county, although in a crude form ; 
but very material advancements and improvements have ,been 
made. Prior to the date of the formation of the State, and for 
some time after the war, the only educational system, or means 
of securing an education, was by private or "pay" schools. Those 
who desired could attend, or those who were able to pay the tui- 
tion, usually $1 per month per pupil. The schools were few and 
far between, and the old schoolmaster was a "power in the land," 
he being the scrivener and legal adviser for the entire section of 
the country in which he was located. He would go into a neigh- 
borhood, secure subscribers sufficient for a school for a few months 
— usually during the winter, when the farmers could not be at 
work on their farms — then "board around" with the pupils. One 
school answered for an entire district, for a neighborhood in a ra- 
dius of ten miles. 

There were at the time this county was formed very few free 
schools, and fewer free school houses in the county, and they were 
all of rough hewn logs. As I recollect at this time, there was but 
one free school house in Green Sulphur Township ; it was the old 
"Gum School House" at the ford of Lick Creek, at the foot of 
Keeney's Knob, about a half a mile above the old "Miller Home- 
stead." This house was built under the supervision of Samuel H. 
Withrow, by Mr. Nathan Duncan, and was of hewn logs, with 
dressed ceiling and floors, and cost $400. S. H. Withrow was at 
that time one of the school officers under the "system" then m 
power, and it was through his influence the house and school were 
secured. This house was built about the year 1867 or 1868, while 
the district was still in Greenbrier County, a part of Blue Sulphur 
Township. The children for all that region around, from six years 
of age to twenty-one, around from the top of Keeney's Knob to 
the head of Lick Creek, and to the top of Sewell Mountain, the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 291 



Andrew Foster place, the Hurley place, the Slater's Creek and 
Duncan settlements, a radius of six miles or more, attended, and 
there was no complaint in those days of that distance to travel. 
The war having suspended education for several years, the schools, 
when they began to open up after its conclusion, were rilled with 
a large number of boys and girls more than twenty-one years of 
age, and of boys who had fought under the stars and bars. 

The first free school at this house was taught by a young man 
by the name of A. M. Matics, who was very much disliked by both 
pupils and patrons, and before the close of the term all had quit 
the school except a very few. No one could teach school in those 
days without first subscribing to some kind of a teacher's test- 
oath, testifying to his loyalty to the Government during the war. 

The first school house erected on Lick Creek, of which I can 
secure any information, was an old log house on the farm of Wil- 
liam B. McNeer, on the bank of Slater's Creek, near the forks of 
the creek, and the first school taught there after the war was by 
John P. Duncan, and was attended by a number of the old soldiers 
of the Confederacy, including Jno. C. McNeer, James W. Miller, 
James S. Duncan, John L. Duncan, Nathan Duncan, and others 
whose names I do not remember, who had all been in the army. 

The first school, however, taught on Lick Creek after the war 
was by Major Jno. S. Rudd, was a large subscription school, and 
was attended by a great many in that region. It was the first 
school ever attended by many of us, walking a distance of two 
miles and a half to and from each day. As stated before, school 
teachers then and now were people of importance in the country. 
They wrote wills, and prepared deeds and legal documents con- 
veying land. Major Rudd was a West Point graduate, and a fin- 
ished scholar and teacher, as well as lawyer; but not a man of high 
character. At that time he still wore his officer's uniform, with 
his epaulets. His wife, Mrs. Rudd, was a fine lady, cultured and 
womanly, of the finest sensibilities. He died a few years ago at 
Montgomery, and she still resides at Union, Monroe County. 

One of the oldest teachers known to the country was Colonel 
George Henry, who lived in the meadows in Greenbrier County. 
He was a descendant of Patrick Henry, of Revolutionary fame, 
being a grandson, and was a West Point graduate. He would re- 
ceive all kinds of products, raiment and wearing apparel, for tui- 
tion, and "boarded around," spending a night alternately with his 
pupils, and for which he was- not expected to pay. Colonel Henry, 
while an accomplished scholar, was celebrated for his slovenly hab- 



292 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



its, it being understood that he bathed his face only when it could 
not be well avoided. 

William Lewis, of Muddy Creek, was the second teacher at 
the "Gum School House." This school house, which was famous 
in its day, after many years of usefulness, was abandoned, the 
school district divided, and numerous other school houses built 
around in the neighborhood. After the free schools came in vogue, 
the teachers all had to go to the home of the county superintend- 
ent for examination by him, and the grade of the certificates were 
numbered from one to five, one being the highest and five the 
lowest. Only the elementary English branches were required to 
be taught. 

There was at the beginning, as above stated, one free school 
house built in Green Sulphur District. Z. A. Trueblood was the 
first county superintendent of Greenbrier County, of which we have 
any information. 

Mr. T. J. Jones was an old gentleman, and one of the few who 
could hold office just after the war, and was a justice of the peace, 
as well as school commissioner, and took acknowledgments to 
deeds, and usually, when he signed his name officially, he did so 
by signing "T. J. Jones, Justice, J. P." This gentleman undertook 
to be examined to teach in the free schools, as he was qualified to 
teach by being in a position to take the test-oath. He applied to 
Mr. Trueblood for a certificate, and returned rejoicing greatly, car- 
rying in his pocket a No. 5 certificate. On being questioned as to 
his success,* he joyfully announced "that he had come out at the 
top ; that he had gotten the highest, a No. 5, and could have got- 
ten a No. 6 if the law allowed it !" 

The school houses, teachers and systems have greatly improved 
since those days, there being now scarcely a log school house in 
the county, they being now built of frame, with active and intelli- 
gent young gentlemen and ladies for teachers. The curriculum 
has been enlarged, including most of the modern branches of study 
for a fair business education. The school houses are furnished with 
modern desks, seats and other school furniture and fixtures. At 
the time of the founding of the county three months was the term ; 
now we have five, with one graded or high school, employing 
twenty teachers and a principal and assistant, in the cities of Hin- 
ton and Avis. 

The funds for maintaining the free schools were then secured, 
as now, by direct tax levied against the personal and real property 
assessments of the county, and were divided into a Building and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



293 



Teachers' Fund. Originally they were collected and paid out by 
a treasurer of the county; but for the last number of years, since 
the adoption of the amendments to the Constitution, by the sheriff 
as ex-ofBcio treasurer, on drafts issued to the teachers by the presi- 
dent and secretary of the Boards of Education of the respective 
districts. Each teacher at the founding of the county was required 
then, as now, to make monthly reports to the Board of Education, 
endorsed by the trustees. Each district, through its trustees, con- 
tracts for the respective teachers for the sub-districts into which 
the magisterial districts are divided, there usually being a free 
school for each sub-district. 

The Board of Education is composed of three members, one the 
president and the other two members of the Board, and a secretary. 
The president and members of the Board are elected for four years, 
and they elect the secretary; all of the school officers being under 
the general supervision of the superintendent of free schools for 
the county, and under a State Superintendent of Free Schools. 
Their authorities are not materially changed at the present time 
from what they were originally. George W. Lilly is the present 
superintendent, serving out his second term of four years, and is 
a very excellent and up-to-date school man and educator. The 
business of the Board of Education is "to let out," construct and 
repair school buildings. The trustees employ the teachers, look 
after keeping the houses in repair, fire, water, etc. 

Originally the girls, swept out the houses and the boys pro- 
vided the wood and made the fires from fagots gathered from the 
forests, they taking their turns alternately in the performance of 
these duties. At the present time all of this is changed, and all 
provided to order and paid for from the public finances — the build- 
ing fund. Originally the parent did as he pleased about sending 
his children to school, and a great many for whom the free schools 
were intended secured little or no benefits therefrom. Now. un- 
der the law, each pupil under the school age is required by com- 
pulsory statute to attend school, unless prevented by sickness or 
a legal excuse, and a parent failing in this is subject to a prosecution 
and fine, there being a truant officer in each district, appointed by 
the Board of Education, to enforce this law. The county super- 
intendent's record shows that there were 16 free schools in the 
county at its formation, with 16 log school houses, each of which 
were log structures, and the number of teachers was 16. For a num- 
ber of years there was a great demand for schools by teachers ; now 
the demand is for teachers. The low wages paid, the increased ex- 



294 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



penses of living, the short terms for which the schools are kept 
open during the year, have made teaching unattractive as a pro- 
fession, and the teachers of the present day, in the majority of 
such cases, are teachers only until something better turns up, the 
schools being used as stepping stones to a more profitable career.. 

The first free school teacher in Pipestem District was Mr. 
Albert Pendleton Gallatin Farley, who taught in that region di- 
rectly after the inauguration of the free school system. Mr. Far- 
ley still resides in that district, is an honorable gentleman and well- 
to-do farmer, having been educated at Henry and Emory College, 
in South West Virginia. A. E. Cotton, who now resides at Ad- 
kinsville, in Raleigh County, was one of the first free school teach- 
ers in the county, teaching in Forest Hill District especially. His 
brother, Thomas J. Cotton, was also one of the old-time free school 
teachers. Archie Allen, who resides on top of the Big Ben Tun- 
nel Mountain, is one of the oldest teachers in the county, and 
taught from the time of the establishment of the system until within 
recent years, and is known throughout the county as one of its 
. best educators. His father, Nathaniel Allen, was an old pioneer set- 
tler of that region, and died in the year 1903 at ^the very advanced 
age of near ninety years. He was known throughout the country 
as a very devout Southern Mehtodist, and attended all of the quar- 
terly and other meetings of that church for miles around. 

The old school houses in what is now Summers, before the 
establishment of the free school system, were frequently without 
other than dirt floors. George W. Lilly, present superintendent 
of free schools, attended school when a lad in a log house, which 
had no floor except mother earth. The roofs of these houses were 
of clapboards, held down by poles laid from one end of the house 
to the other, with a stick between them to hold them separate. 

There are 160 free schools in this county, with 160 teachers. 
William H. Lilly, father of E. B. Lilly, of Leatherwood, was an 
old-time teacher, and taught at the old Apple Place School House, 
forty years ago. 

Preston Rives Shirard deserves mention in this story as one 
of the pioneer free school teachers, as well as "subscription teacher." 
He educated principally two of the superintendents of this county, 
David G. Lilly and Jonathan F. Lilly, who were brothers-in-law. 
He was an over-educated gentleman ; had more education than 
he had practical sense; was very peculiar in his manners; had long 
hair down over his shoulders, with a cap without any bill pulled 
down over his ears, with untrimmed beard, and wore shabby clothes. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 295 



What money he earned he spent for the good of the cause of edu- 
cation, and distributed among the poor children of the territory. 
After teaching in this county for a number of years, he went to 
Kanawha County, where he died some five or six years ago. 

George W. Leftwich is another of the older teachers, and later 
county superintendent for four years from Forest Hill District. 
Also Wm. J. Kirk, of Green Sulphur District, who was also a com- 
missioner of the county court for six years. 

HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN SUMMERS COUNTY. 

By GEO. W. LILLY, SUPERINTENDENT. 

Summers County lies in the southern part of West Virginia, in 
longitude 81° west and latitude 37° north. 

The close of the war found the territory now embraced in the 
county practically without both schools and churches, and it was 
not until about the year 1868 that any interest was manifested in 
either schools or churches. 

That portion of the county taken from Fayette had not a single 
school. From Greenbrier County's territory we received, as nearly 
as I can learn, mot more than four schools; from Mercer County, 
six, and from Monroe County, six, making a total of sixteen in the 
county at its formation ; and immediately after the adoption of the 
Constitution of 1872, which prescribed that the Legislature should 
provide for a "thorough and efficient system of free schools," our 
people awoke from their lethargy and made rapid strides, until our 
system to-day is as good as can possibly be made under the existing 
circumstances. 

The primitive school buildings (a few of which are still stand- 
ing) were very rude structures, being built by the public-spirited 
citizens without cost to the county or district. These houses were 
only sixteen feet square, without any chimney (one end of the 
house being left uncovered for the space of five feet to afford a 
passage for the smoke), the whole end being used as a place in 
which to build fires. The furniture consisted of small logs split into 
halves and "pegs" used as legs. These houses were all "cabined 
off," covered with boards held down by "weight poles," and only a 
very few floored with "puncheons," the others having the bare 
earth for floors. Windows were unknown, and a rough board was 
used as a "writing desk." The teachers were scarce; none trained 
in colleges, normals or high schools, and teachers that were pro- 



296 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ficient in the three R's, Reading, " 'Riting" and " 'Rithmetic," were 
in constant demand, at salaries ranging from fourteen to twenty 
dollars per month, and when such teachers could be secured, they 
were considered quite a luxury. 

During the ten years extending from 1890 to 1900, there was 
the greatest possible activity among the friends of education. 
Boards of education throughout the county were then discarding 
the old log buildings, and erecting new frame cottages, supplying 
them with ample light, blackboards and the best of modern school 
furniture, and many of them, apparatus. In 1890, the schools of 
Summers County had increased from sixteen at its organization to 
120 primary schools, two graded and one high school. 

But at no time in the history of Summers County has the zeal 
for education been greater than at the present. All the old build- 
ings have been replaced by modern ones, with ample room, light 
and modern furniture, cloak room and everything for the conve- 
nience and health of both teachers and pupils. These buildings are 
24 x 36 feet, fourteen feet from floor to ceiling ; eight large windows, 
and well equipped with modern furnishings, at a cost of $850.00 
' to $1,000.00 each. 

In 1903, a system of examination known as the "uniform sys- 
tem" went into effect. This system raised the standard of the 
teachers, and this, together with the material development of the 
State, has produced a shortage of teachers, from which our schools 
are now suffering. The material development of the State has 
opened many positions to teachers at salaries far above that offered 
by boards of education, and, consequently, our schools have lost 
many of their efficient teachers. 

Such has been the zeal of Summers County's citizenship that 
every obstacle has been gallantly met and overcome, and school 
property is guarded as a treasure, the value of which can not be 
computed. Summers County, at its organization, could not boast 
property worth one cent, and now, at the opening of 1907, she has 
to her credit property worth $200,000. 

Summers County now has 161 schools, in which are employed 
175 well-equipped teachers, at an average salary of $33.00 per 
month ; has enrolled 5,000 pupils from a total enumeration of 6,800, 
and has an average daily attendance of 3,85.0, at an annual cost per 
capita of $12.35, based on attendance ; S8.70 based on enrollment, 
and $6.54 based on the enumeration. 

At its organization, and for several years thereafter, Summers" 
County had only one lady teacher, Miss Mollie Jordan, daughter 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 297 



of Gordon L. Jordan, Summers County's first representative in the 
West Virginia Legislature. But the gentle zephyrs which pass 
through its beautiful valleys and waft the sweet-scented smell of 
delicious fruits, blooming flowers, and the glad song of ever-sing- 
ing birds up the mountain sides, towering from 1,500 to 2,500 feet 
above the sea, have awakened in the bosoms of the Summers 
County maidens an enthusiasm for education which will not abate, 
and is the wonder and admiration of our stalwart sons, who have 
been giving place to the ladies, until now seventy-five per cent, of 
our noble and true-hearted teachers are ladies. 

The upbuilding of the present system in the county has been 
materially aided by her efficient county superintendents, viz. : 

John Pack, from the formation of the county to 1873. 

C. L. Ellison, Forest Hill District, 1873 to 1877. Two terms. 

D. G. Lilly, Jumping Branch District, 1877 to 1881. Two terms. 
Jas. H." Miller, Green Sulphur District, 1881 to 1883. One term. 
H. F. Kesler, Talcott District, 1883 to 1885. One term. 

C. A. Clark, Pipestem District, 1885 to 1887. One term, 
V. V. Austin, Pipestem District, 1887 to 1889. One term. 
J. F. Lilly, Jumping Branch District, 1889 to 1891. One term. 
Geo. W. Lilly, Jumping Branch District, 1891 to 1893. One term. 
J. M. Parker, Jumping Branch District, 1893 to 1895. One term. 
Geo. W. Leftwich, Forest Hill District, 1895 to 1899. One term. 
H. F. Kesler, Talcott District, 1899 to 1903. One term. 
Geo. W. Lilly, Jumping Branch District, 1903 to 1907. One 
term. 

J. E. Keadle, 1907. Term beginning July 1st. 

THE HINTON HIGH SCHOOL. 

At the formation of Summers County the territory embraced in 
the districts of Greenbrier and Talcott formed only one district, 
Greenbrier, and supported only six schools. 

In the year 1874, the number had increased to thirteen, and in 
that year a building committee, consisting of W, W. Adams, C. A. 
Fredeking, M. V. Calloway and C. A. Sperry, was appointed to 
provide suitable specifications and let to contract a schoolhouse in 
subdistrict No. 13, which house was erected by E. A. Weeks at the 
price of $675.00, and is the foundation of the Hinton High School. 

The first teacher in this new building was W. R, Thompson, 
and was opened in the fall of 1875, with Miss Anna Hoge as as- 
sistant. Mrs. W. W. Adams had previously taught in a rented 



298 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



building. W. R. Thompson was succeeded by Harvey Ewart and 
Miss Lida French as assistant. Next was Rufus Alderson and Miss 
Hoge, who were followed by John J. Cabell, Major J. S. Rudd and 
J. H. Jordan, with Misses Anna Hoge, Jennie Hamer and Nannie 
McCreery. 

His Honor, James H. Miller, taught in this school in 1877, fol- 
lowing H. Ewart. Miss Anna Hoge was his assistant. 

He again took charge of the school in 1880, with Miss Mariah 
Beasly as his assistant, and in 1881, with C. A. Clark as assistant. 

Prof. J. F. Holroyd opened the first school in what is known as 
the city of Avis the same year, which school has since grown suc- 
cessively to two, three and four rooms, and has recently been made 
a branch of the Hinton High School. 

In 1887, our people determined that their children should have 
better educational facilities, and, tiring of sending them away to 
other schools, they filed a petition with the School Board, con- 
sisting of J. C. James, president ; S. W. Willey and James Briers, 
commissioners, and J. M. Carden, secretary, asking for the estab- 
lishing of a district high school. The proposition was submitted 
to a vote of the people, and carried by a large majority. In accord- 
ance with the expressed wish of the people, a high school was es- 
tablished, with four teachers, viz., J. H. Jordan, principal; V. V. 
Austin, Miss Mary Ewart and Miss Nannie McCreery, assistants. 

The grounds cover eight full size city building lots, four of 
which were donated to the Board of Education by the Central 
Land Co. of West Virginia, and the remaining four were purchased. 
These grounds alone are now worth about $60,000. 

The first building was a brick structure containing four rooms, 
but soon after the board found it necessary to add two rooms, 
which, with this addition, was sufficient to accommodate the pupils 
until 1895, and in which year it was determined to build a more 
spacious building and equip it with all modern appliances for the 
continually growing enrollment. The building was supposed to 
cost about $20,000, and the board was forced to borrow $12,000, 
and, with this amount, the board could raise a sufficient amount to 
build the house. Accordingly, an election was ordered to be held 
December 31, 1895, which resulted in a majority of 301 to 16 in its 
favor. Work was immediately commenced on the structure, and 
the fall of 1896 marked its completion in time for the opening of 
the school. New branches have been added from time to time and 
additional teachers employed, until now, at the opening of 1907, 
finds it second to no school in Southern West Virginia. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



299 



The first Board of Education of Greenbrier District consisted of 
Robert H. Wikel, president; James Boyd and M. A. Manning, com- 
missioners, and S. W. Willey, secretary. Under this board the first 
election for authorizing a school levy was held. There were cast 
187 votes ; 186 were cast in favor of the levy, and one against it. 

The following is a copy of one of the certificates of one of the 
first assessors of Summers County: 

"I hereby certify to the Board of Education of Greenbrier Dis- 
trict, Summers County, West Virginia, the assessed value of the 
property in your district as shown this year on the commissioners' 
books, which will be your guide for making levy, viz. : Real estate, 
$142,583.18; personal property, $56,621.00; total, $199,204.18. 

" (Signed), JOHN LILLY, Assessor of Summers County." 

J. T. Huffman, president; S. W. Willey and James Sims, com- 
missioners, and J. B. Lavender, secretary, comprised the Board of 
Education under which the new building was erected on Temple 
Street. 

The present board, Wm. H. Sawyers, president ; R. E. Noel and 
J. D. Roles, commissioners, and W. E. Price, secretary, have been 
untiring in their efforts to make this the best school in the State. 

Especial care has been taken to make the sanitary conditions 
good; much new furniture and apparatus have been recently added, 
until now the buildings and grounds and appointments are valued 
at $150,000. The enrollment is now 825, with an average daily 
attendance of 700. The school consists of the primary grade and 
the high school department. 

John D. Sweeney was appointed as the first superintendent of 
Hinton Schools in the fall of 1900; H. F. Fleshman, who held the 
position for a period of four years, during which time the school 
made rapid progress. Mr. Fleshman was succeeded by I. B. Bush 
in the fall of 1904, who is now in charge of the city schools, with a 
corps of twenty-one well-equipped teachers, four of which number 
are in the high school department. 

The high school course consists of four full years' work, and 
graduates are admitted to a number of our leading universities and 
colleges without examination. Scholarships have been awarded to 
its graduates by Washington, Lee and Tulane Universities. The 
following schools are represented by their graduates in the high 
school corps of teachers : W est Virginia University, Vanderbilt 
University, Dickinson College, Randolph-Macon Woman's College 
and Woman's College at Richmond. 



300 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The grades are taught by eighteen well-equipped teachers, grad- 
uates of seminaries, high and normal schools. Music and drawing 
were introduced in the fall of 1906, and great progress has been 
shown under competent supervisors who are in charge of these 
subjects. 

Prof. Bush is a ripe scholar, a genial gentleman, and to his un- 
tiring energy is due the fact that, in the spring of 1906, the Board 
of Education submitted a proposition to issue bonds for $25,000 
for the erection of an additional high school building, which bond 
issue carried by an overwhelming majority, and the board has now 
under process of construction a new building on a site costing 
$10,000, which, when completed and furnished will add $75,000 to 
the value of the high school property. 

GRADED SCHOOLS. 

Graded schools have been established as follows : In the town of 
Avis, in 1891, with two teachers, to which has since been added 
- two more; and in 1905 this school was made a branch of the high 
school. Prof. H. O. Curry is now principal, with three well- 
equipped teachers as assistants. Prof. Curry is a ripe scholar, and 
to him is due the present high standing of this school. 

At Green Sulphur Springs, with Miss Ella George, a lady of 
splendid attainments, as principal, with one assistant teacher. 

At New Richmond, with Miss Irene Hoke as principal, with one 
assistant teacher. 

At Talcott, Prof. M. E. Carden as principal, with, at the present 
time, only one associate teacher, but the growing interest will, in 
the near future, make necessary the employment of two more. 

At Jumping Branch, with Mr. Lee Harper, a teacher of several 
years' experience, as principal, with one assistant. This school has 
been, since its establishment, doing good work, and the citizens are 
very proud, and ere long the increasing enrollment will make nec- 
essary additional teachers. 

The Hinton Colored School, established as a graded school in 
1897, employing four teachers. This school is well appointed and 
affords a means by which the colored youth are acquiring a splen- 
did education. Graduates from this school are admitted in the 
leading colored schools of the country. The school building, 
grounds, furniture and apparatus are valued at $10,000. 

These schools are all doing good work, and in the near future it 
will be necessary to establish other graded schools in the county. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 301 



A new high school building is now in course of construction in 
Avis, at a cost of $30,000, Greenbrier District having voted $25,000 
in bonds in 1906 for its erection. It is of brick, with latest heating 
and sanitary equipments. The lot was purchased from the James 
Brothers for $8,200,00. 

Theodore S. Webb was also one of the later teachers, as were 
also J. Houston Miller, now president of the Waxahachie National 
Bank in Texas, Miss Mary B. Miller, C. L. Miller, W. N. McNeer, 
R. W. Clark, later a member of the Board of Examiners and a jus- 
tice of the peace, George P. Scott, David Bowles, Jr., and H. F. 
Kesler, twice county superintendent. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



CHURCHES. 

The first church in all the region of the Talcott country was a 
log church which stood within 200 yards of where the residence of 
Ben R. Boyd now stands, on top of the Little Bend Tunnel. It was 
a Union Church, worshiped in by all denominations; built of logs, 
covered with boards, and was burned prior to the Civil War and 
never rebuilt, but a new church — Pisgah — a Methodist house of 
worship, was built on top of the Big Bend Tunnel, where the pres- 
ent Pisgah Church now stands. 

All the original churches were log buildings and of the most 
primitive character, covered with clapboards, built from the trees of 
the forest by the people of the community, who joined in aiding for 
miles around. 

The first frame church built in the county was the Methodist 
Church at Pipestem — Jordan's Chapel — built before the war, and 
named for the family of Hon. Gordan L. Jordan. 

The first missionary Baptist Church in the New River or Green- 
brier Valleys was established about one mile above the mouth of 
Muddy Creek, and is known as the Old Greenbrier Baptist Church, 
in what is now North Alderson, founded by John Alderson, the 
pioneer missionary Baptist minister, west of the Allegheny Moun- 
tains. He was the pastor of the Lynnville Baptist Church of Rock- 
ingham County, Virginia, from 1775 to 1777. Rev. Alderson made 
three visits into the regions west of the Alleghenies and baptized 
three persons, John Griffith, who was killed afterwards by the In- 
dians, and Mrs. Keeney. We are unable to secure the name of the 
third. They were the first persons ever baptized by immersion in 
the Greenbrier River. He brought his family and settled in 1777. 
When he had gotten as far as Jackson's River on his way, he learned 
of an Indian attack on the Colonel James Graham settlement, where 
Lowell now stands, and that one of Colonel Graham's family had 
been killed, so he delayed until October. He first located on Wolf 
Creek, at Jarret's Fort, but shortly after built his cabin where the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 303 

Alderson Hotel now stands, and which is occupied by one of his 
descendants, John W. Alderson. In two years he had gathered a 
congregation of twelve members, and called his organization a 
branch, of the Lynnville Church. He thus operated until the 22d 
of October, when he established the old Greenbrier Baptist Church, 
and the next year he had it admitted to the Ketocton Association. 
Measures were taken to build the first church in 1783, and in July 
following the building was occupied for public worship. Members 
joined for thirty miles around, and regularly attended the monthly 
meeting held on Saturday and Sunday of each month. This church 
and the whole of the town of Alderson and North Alderson are 
within the territorial limits of Summers County, but it has not oc- 
cupied it and never exercised dominion or jurisdicton over it be- 
cause it was not known to be within the county lines establishing 
the county until the time had elapsed in which it could assume or 
assert dominion by reason of its legislative-created authority. 



THE METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH SOUTH, 

HINTON. 

The Hinton Circuit was formed 1872, and is a part of and within 
the Baltimore Conference. The preachers in charge were as fol- 
lows: H. M. Leslie, 1872 and 1873; W. M. Hiner, 1873 and 1874; 
Vincent M. Wheeler, 1874 and 1875; O. F. Burgess, 1875 and 1876; 
Alfred Gearhart, 1876 and 1877; O. F. Burgess, 1877 and 1878; 
Henry S. Coe, 1878 and 1880; Henry D. Bishop, 1880 and 1881; 
John A. Anderson, 1881 and 1883 ; David L. Reid, 1883 and 1885 ; 
- J; L. Follansbee, 1885 and 1887. In 1887 Hinton was made a sta- 
tion, Presley V. Smith, 1887 and 1888; J. Lester Shipley, 1888 
and 1891; Charles L. Dameron, 1891 and 1892; O. C. Beale, 1892 
and 1896; Henry A. Brown, 1896 and 1900; J. R. Van Horn, 1900 
. and 1903; L. L. Lloyd, 1903, and is still in charge in 1907. The 
first house used was the old frame public school building situated 
where Dr. Holley's hospital is now located, which was occupied 
until the First Baptist Church was erected in 1876, after which it 
was used jointly with the other denominations until the First Meth- 
odist Church was built in 1880, which was a one-story frame build- 
ing about 30 by 50 feet, and which has, since it was abandoned as a 
church, been used as a printing office by the Independent Herald 
and for school purposes. About 1890 the large modern brick build- 



304 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ing was completed and has since been used as the house of worship 
by this denomination. It is a large modern building, heated by 
steam, with a basement for social gatherings, the costliest church in 
the county. The General Conference of the church was held in this 
building in March, 1895, presided over by Bishop Wilson. The 
present pastor, Rev. L. L. Lloyd, with the completion of the pres- 
ent year will have been located at this church for his full term of 
four years. He is one of the best pastors ever provided for this 
or any other congregation. 

The cornerstone for the first Methodist Episcopal Church, South, 
church building was laid by the Masons on the 18th of December. 
1876, by Ex-Gov. Judge Geo. W. Atkinson, Grand Secretary of 
West Virginia. The corner-stone of the present brick edifice was 
also laid with imposing Masonic ceremonies and a number of valu- 
able coin, papers, etc., deposited. 



INDIAN MILLS BAPTIST CHURCH. 

This organization was effected September 3, 1887. T. H. Fitz- 
gerald was the first moderator of the council. Absolem D. Bolton 
was chosen first pastor, and served the church for a long term, 
until November 4, 1899, when he resigned by reason of the failure 
of his health. 

George W. Leftwich was elected first clerk of the church, which 
position he has very ably filled from the date of its organization 
September 3, 1887, until the present time. 

Rev. A. A. McClelland was the second pastor, and addressed 
the spiritual affairs of that organization from December 2, 1899 to 
May 4, 1901, after which Rev. H. McLaughlin was elected pastor 
from January 1, 1901, to May 6, 1905, at which time his resignation 
was accepted, and the church then accepted the Rev. J. B. Cham- 
bers, who is the present moderator, pastor, and in full charge of 
the church. 

Rev. Chambers is not only in charge of this church, but minis- 
ters to several other churches ; he is a man of fine ability and Chris- 
tian character, and is now residing at the mouth of Greenbrier 
River. 

We are in receipt of the data of this church through the cour- 
tesy of Mr. George W. Leftwich, who is one of the oldest school 
teachers of the state, and an ex-county superintendent of free 
schools of this county. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



305 



PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF HINTON. 

This church was organized in the month of June, 1874, by a 
commission appointed by the old Greenbrier Presbytery, which 
consisted of Rev. J. C. Barr, D. D., of Charleston, W. Va. ; Ruling 
Elder James Withrow, of Lewisburg, and Messrs. Carl A. Frede- 
king, E. A. Weeks and Hiram Scott, of Hinton, who constituted 
the first actual session, with the following members : Mrs. Hiram 
Scott, Mrs. Wills and Mrs. C. A. Sperry. 

The congregation owned no church property at the date of the 
organization of the church, but occupied one Sunday out of the 
month at the First Baptist Church. During the first year of the 
church history it was supplied monthly by ministers appointed by 
the Presbytery. In 1875, Rev. P. E. Brown, a student of the Pres- 
byterian Theological Seminary, supplied the pulpit for four months. 
In 1876, the first regular pastor was called, Rev. H. R. Laird, 
remaining until September, 1878. Mr. Laird was a very scholarly 
gentleman and a good theologian, but like many other eminent 
men, was somewhat forgetful. One Sunday evening, he preached 
from a certain text, and at his next meeting, the month following, 
preached the sermon from the same text, having forgotten that 
he had previously used that text. 

Following Rev. Laird, Rev. L. A. McLain became the pastor 
in June, 1880, and continued until August, 1884. Rev. J. W. 
Wightman, D. D., was called in 1884, and remained pastor until 
the date of his death, in June, 1889. Dr. Wightman was the 
father of our townsman, Mr. Henry Weightman, and of Mrs. John 
Haynes. The family of Dr. Wightman still resides in this city. 

Rev. J. W. Holt was called on December 20, 1889, and continued 
pastor until September, 1900, at which date he resigned, accept- 
ing a call at Alderson, West Virginia, where he still resides. After 
the resignation of Mr. Holt, Rev. D. R. Frierson was called in May, 
1901, and continued as pastor until September, 1903, at which date 
he resigned, and in August following, in 1904, Rev. D. W. Hol- 
lingsworth was called and is the present pastor of that church. 

The official boards of the church are, at this writing, as follows : 
• Session: C. A. Fredeking, Clerk; R. F. Dunlap, R. T. Dolin, 
J. W. Miller, H. T. Smith. 

Board of Deacons: J. D. Humphries, Treasurer; C. B. Mahon, 
E. L. Briers, A. M. Erwin and P. W. Boggess. 

The church was organized with a membership of six; the pres- 



306 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ent membership is 235. The Presbyterians were pioneers in church 
building and church organization in the city of Hinton. A lot 
was acquired for church purposes on Temple Street, on which a 
neat frame church was erected in 1882. 

C. A. Fredeking, the clerk of the session, is an ex-justice of the 
peace and retired merchant ; R. F. Dunlap is an attorney-at-law ; 
R. T. Dolin an ex-employee of the C. & O. Railway and city ser- 
geant for three consecutive terms, filling that position at this date; 
James W. Miller, proprietor of the Hotel Miller; H. T. Smith, a 
railway locomotive engineer. 

Of the Board of Deacons, J. D. Humphries, treasurer, is en- 
gaged in the mercantile business ; also Capt. C. B. Mahon, who 
is not only one of the leading merchants, but a vice-president and 
leading director in the Bank of Summers, and an ex-railroad con- 
ductor; E. L. Briers, merchant; A. M. Erwin, clerk in the store 
of C. B. Mahon ; P. W. Boggess, a practicing attorney and insur- 
ance agent. 

ROLLINSBURG BAPTIST CHURCH. 

This church was organized on August 29, 1868, by Rev. Martin 
Bibb, assisted by Rev. Rufus Pack and Rev. Henry C. Tinsley, 
three of the pioneer Baptist ministers of this section. 

On Sunday, August 30, 1868, the first pastor, Rev. H. C. Tinsley, 
was elected as pastor of the church, and served as such until Sep- 
tember, 1870. On March 14, 1871, Rev. John Bragg was elected 
pastor, and served the church until April, 1873. On May 10, 1873, 
Rev. W. R. Williams was elected pastor, and served as such until 
Judy 19, 1874. Rev. James Sweeney was elected pastor Sun- 
day, February 6, 1876, having preached and supplied that pulpit 
for some time before he was elected pastor. Rev. Sweeney served 
the church as pastor until September, 1877. Rev. Sweeney still 
survives, being now a resident of Beckley, and a remarkable man 
of the times, being now nearly eighty years old, but active, physi- 
cally, and retaining his mental powers to a wonderful degree. Rev. 
M. Bibb preached for this church from February 10, 1878, until Oc- 
tober 13, 1878. Rev. A. D. Bolton was appointed pastor April 27, 
1879, and served as such until June 8, 1884. 

Shortly after this date, Rev. G. W. Wesley was called as pastor 
by a few members, and preached for the church until December 
20, 1885. This is the same G. W. Wesley who at one time resided 
at the mouth of Greenbrier, and who for several years was pastor 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



307 



of a number of churches in this region, including the Greenbrier 
Baptist Church, the Griffith's Creek Church and others. He was 
a native of Wyoming County, was noted for his rascality, and after- 
wards served a term in the Kentucky penitentiary for bigamy. 

On Saturday, May 28, 1887, Rev. C. D. Kincaid was elected 
pastor, and served until December, 1892. Rev. Kincaid was a native 
of Lick Creek, and without any educational opportunities, became 
a very intelligent and conscientious minister of this church, serving 
a number of congregations faithfully until his death a few years 
ago. Shortly after Mr. Kincaid severed his connection with the 
church, Rev. G. W. Parker was appointed pastor, and served until 
May 7, 1893. Rev. W. F. Hank was elected pastor August 6, 1893, 
and served as such until March 3, 1895. Mr. Hank is still a citizen 
of Summers County, owning and residing on an attractive home- 
stead at Pack's Ferry. 

Rev. C. T. Kirtner was elected pastor March 22, 1896, preaching 
for the church, however, but a short time. On August 16, 1896, 
Rev. Walter Crawford, of Forest Hill District, was elected pastor, 
and continued and served as such until August, 1903, at which time 
Rev. A. D. McClelland was elected on February 12, 1905, and is 
the present pastor for that congregation. 

This is known as the Rollinsburg Baptist Church, having been 
founded when that was the name of the post office at that place 
and before the construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad, 
and before the founding of the present thriving village of Talcott. 
This congregation now occupies a comfortable frame church 
building. 

I am under obligations to W. W. Jones, Esq., of Talcott, for 
the facts concerning the organization of this church, who was one 
of the pioneer settlers of that place. His brother, J. W. Jones, was 
the first clerk of that church, having been elected at its organiza- 
tion, and served as such until September, 1875. On September 17, 
1875, Mr. Jones was accidentally killed by a pistol shot, fired by 
himself in his storeroom at that place. He was a very enterprising 
and thrifty merchant. He, with his brother, W. W. Jones, estab- 
lished the mercantile business on the opposite side of the river from 
the railroad at the old Rollinsburg storehouse, where they con- 
tinued the business until the building of the railroad, when they 
removed to the present site of W. W. Jones, near the end of the 
new iron toll bridge, constructed at that point across Greenbrier 
River. W. W. Jones is one of the active members of this church 
congregation, and its advancement and success is greatly due to 



308 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



his consistent enterprise. He is a good, conscientious, enterprising 
citizen. In 1907 the church was struck by lightning and burned 
to the ground, and the members are now securing funds to rebuild. 

LICK CREEK BAPTIST CHURCH. 

This church was organized by a few faithful Christian people 
at the residence of Mrs. Elizabeth Duncan, at the old Duncan place, 
on the Duncan Branch of Lick Creek, about half a mile from 
Green Sulphur Springs, on the 21st of August, 1832. This place 
is within a few hundred yards of the residence of Dr. Edgar E. 
Noel, and is owned by Messrs. J. P. and W. T. Maddy. The 
church was organized by Elder William C. Ligon, and I get a 
somewhat full record of this old church, having been placed in 
possession of the church record, kept by Mr. Ephraim J. Gwinn, 
the father of M. and H. Gwinn, who was clerk of the church from 
June 14, 1848, until the 11th day of June, 1868, being succeeded 
by the late John Hix, and it is a pleasure, as well as a matter of 
interest, to show the character of this devout and Christian people, 
who were then settling in the vastness of almost a forest wilder- 
ness. The members of this church at that time were regularly 
dismissed from the Amwell, Greenbrier and Cotton Hill churches. 

"Church covenant made and entered into Tuesday, the 21st 
day of August, 1832, between the members of the Baptist Church 
of Christ, called Lick Creek. All whose names are enrolled in 
the record have been duly baptized on a profession of our faith 
in the Lord Jesus Christ, do hereby most solemnly and in fear of 
God, give ourselves unto the Lord and to each other, to be gov- 
erned and regulated as a religious body in the manner following: 

"Art. I. We believe that the Church of Christ is not national 
but congregational, it being a body of faithful men and women 
quickened and called by the holy spirit of the world of the unre- 
generated, and united together in love and mutual consent for 
comfort, support and edification of each other ; that our Lord Christ 
is the supreme head and law giver of his church, and his word 
their immediate rule or key, by which they can open and none 
can shut, or, shut and none can open, therefore, they have the 
sole right and privilege to govern themselves according to the 
holy Scriptures, and that no man or set of men, whether bishop 
synods, associations, or assemblies of ministers, have any right or 
power to impose church laws upon, or intermeddle with the privi- 
leges of any particular church, such exercises of power, sayings of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 309 



anti-Christians, priest craft, and papal corruption, yet we have 
such assemblies, not only as lawful, but very useful when acting 
as advisory counsels, according to the Word of God. We shall 
therefore esteem it our 'hyest' privilege, as well as our duty, to 
fill our places in the Baptist Association. 

"Art. II. We hold it to be our indispensable duty to watch 
over each other; to keep up a regular gospel description; to sup- 
port and hold as far as in us lies the light or glorious gospel of 
Christ before a dark and benighted world, and to this end, we do 
solemnly agree and promise, and in the presence of the living and 
heart-searching God, to endeavor to suppress every species of 
vicious immorality, and, especially, in our own families. 

"Art. III. As we acknowledge only one faith, one Lord and one 
Baptism, we ourselves bound by most solemn obligations to main- 
tain, as far as we possibly can, the pure ordinance of the gospel 
church regarding the commands and examples of our glorious 
Redeemer, as the only lawful pattern, not turing aside from these 
to the right or the left, neither teaching for doctrines the vain tra- 
ditions nor commandments of men." 

Elder (Rev.) William C. Ligon was the first pastor of this 
church. On June 17, 1848, Elder (Rev.) John Bragg was elected 
pastor, who ministered for many years to the spiritual wants of 
the people at a salary of $40.00 per annum. This was the same 
Rev. John Bragg who was elected deputy clerk of the county 
court, with Josephus Pack, the first clerk of the county. He moved 
to the west several years ago, when quite an old man, and was 
the father of Judson Bragg, who still resides near Pipestem post 
office. Rev. Bragg was a saintly man and did much for the cause 
of morality in this region of the country and for the Missionary 
Baptist Church. The contributions to the church for the associa- 
tion for this year was $1.31. I notice that for a number of years 
this contribution was $1.25. 

Brother Joel Walker, a great hunter of that region, seems to 
have given the church trouble about these times on account of his 
thirst for strong drink, but with the patience and goodness of these 
devout people, his weakness was overlooked, and efforts made for 
his reformation. At the September meeting, 1849, this Brother 
Walker was charged with intoxication, preferred by Brother J. M. 
Hix. Shadrick Martin, the father of James H. Martin, Joseph Mar- 
tin and Aiken Martin, who still live in that community, and E. J. 
Gwinn were appointed a committee to expostulate and show Brother 



310 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Walker the errors of his way and report on him. This committee, 
at a following session of the church, reported as follows : 

"Your committee have seen Brother Walker, and conferred with 
him concerning the charge of his being intoxicated. He acknowl- 
edged the charge in tears and much apparent sorrow, and said he 
hoped the church would not turn him out; that he was determined 
to do better in the future to come, and that if they heard he was 
drunk again, it would be a false report," 

Whereupon, Mr. Walker was acquitted, but we find again at a 
later date, the brother confessed to a later similar charge, and was 
excommunicated. He and family left that region and settled in 
Braxton County, where his son, S. A. Sylvanus, is a minister of 
the gospel. 

On the 17th day of March, 1848, I find the following order en- 
tered : 

"No attendance at church, neither by parson or members ; the 
measles raging in the neighborhood." 

The next pastor after Mr. Bragg was Rev. James Lewis Marshal, 
who retained his pastorate for a number of years, and throughout 
the period of the war, from 1861 to 1865, he also being a chaplain in 
the Confederate Army. After his resignation of his pastorate after 
the war, he removed into Wyoming County, where he died, my 
good friend, Dan Gunnoe, of Craney, having married one of his 
daughters, Miss Hettie. 

The first house of worship was a one-story log building on Lick 
Creek, near the residence of E. J. Gwinn, close to the Green Sulphur 
Springs, in 1850. This was the first church building ever erected 
in Green Sulphur District. It was about 30 x 50 feet, of hewn logs, 
with an aisle in the center. The ladies always sat on one side of 
the aisle and the gentlemen on the other during services. This old 
church was replaced by a neat frame structure in the year 1881, on 
the same site, E. J. Gwinn having donated a church lot to the Bap- 
tists, and his son, H. Gwinn, having donated a lot to the Presby- 
terian congregation. 

The next pastor was the Rev. M. Bibb, well known to many 
citizens still residing in this county as one of the most learned and 
able preachers of the missionary Baptist denomination, being a 
scholar of fine attainments, learned in the Greek language, having 
taken up and mastered this language himself without a tutor. Rev. 
Bibb's last services before his death were for the congregation of 
the First Baptist Church in the city of Hinton. 

He married a daughter of Rev. Mathew Ellison, one of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 311 



pioneer Baptist preachers of West Virginia, who was a learned au- 
thority in its doctrines. He died at a very advanced age at Alder- 
son, a few years ago. Rev. Mathew Ellison just referred to was 
the fourth pastor of this church, having been elected in 1866, and 
retained the same for many years at a salary of $100.00 per year, 
Mr. Bibb having been the pastor in 1855, at a salary of, first, $50.00, 
and then $75.00 a year. 

I notice that on the 27th day of June, 1855, C. B. Martin was 
expelled for lying; and another note was made by the clerk, show- 
ing that about that time the highest waters on Lick Creek ever 
known, and for that reason no meetings were held at the regular 
appointments, which was in the spring of 1852. 

I also find that a charge of grievance was brought up against 
Sister Susan Allen, by Brother N. W. Nowel, in 1860, "for having 
her infant children sprinkled, sprinkling being against Baptist faith, 
practice and order. Therefore, on motion, a committee of three 
brethren, to-wit: N. W. Nowel, John Hix and C. D. Kincaid, were 
appointed to go and see Sister Allen, and learn her reasons, if any 
she has, for so doing, and report the same to the church at their 
monthly session in November, next month." At the next meeting 
the committee reported as follows : "Reference case of Sister Allen 
was then brought before the church ; the report of the committee 
being heard, they are dismissed." Ayes and nays were then called 
for by the moderator, which resulted, by a unanimous vote, in ex- 
cluding Sister Susan Allen from the fellowship of the church for 
having her infant children sprinkled against Baptist faith and prac- 
tice, and the order excommunicating Mrs. Allen, stating that she 
didn't regret what she had done, and would do the same again 
when the circumstances required it. 

1 notice a number of the records are written by Rev. Lewis 
Marshal, one of which I take the liberty of quoting, as follows: 

"Resolved, That all persons resting under heavy charges of im- 
morality are hereby against the November session to come up and 
prove themselves clear, otherwise lay themselves liable to excom- 
munication." 

C. B. Martin, on June 27, 1855, was expelled from the church 
by the congregation for lying. 

There have been numerous pastors of the church from time to 
time, and the church organization remains in continuation to the 
present time, Rev. Chambers being the present pastor. The 
names of many of the old citizens of that section, amongst them 
being, in addition to those named, Lewis Kincaid, John Duncan, 



312 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Joseph Fink, Anderson Miller, L. M. Alderson, who was one of the 
chief stays of the organization and a very excellent citizen. These 
good people undertook to settle all differences between their mem- 
bers,, and I notice at one time there was a trial between Anderson 
Miller and Joseph Fink concerning a liability claimed by the former 
from the latter on account of a colt, in which a committee was 
appointed, heard the evidence, and decided the case in favor of 
Mr. Fink. Rev. H. N. Fink, of New Richmond, an excellent citizen 
and pastor of the Baptist Church, was the son of Joseph Fink, who 
has long since died. 

About 1875, the Presbyterian congregation erected a handsome 
and comfortable frame church near the Baptist Church on that 
creek, of which Rev. Parker is now the pastor, and has been for 
several years. One of the first pastors of that church was Rev. 
Jacob H. Lewis, of Muddy Creek, one of the oldest and best Chris- 
tian characters ever known to any people. No other denominations 
have ever had any church organizations in that community except 
the Southern Methodists, who have never built a house of worship, 
- they occupying the Presbyterian Church. The largest number of 
the citizens by very considerable being of the missionary Baptist 
faith. 

At one time, a few years ago, a Mormon elder, claiming to oper- 
ate under the title of the Church of God, created an organization 
between Green Sulphur and New Richmond, occupying a public 
schoolhouse, which flourished for a number of years, having a 
number of com^erts, but which organization has long since gone 
down and disappeared. 

KELLER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 

This church is located at Lowell Depot, on Greenbrier River, 
near the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, and is named after the old 
settlers of that community, the first being Conrad Keller. This 
church was organized December 1, 1887, by a committee of the 
Greenbrier Presbytery, and was at that time within the bounds of 
Centerville Presbyterian Church. 

' The committee organizing this church was composed of Rev. 
Dr. Wightman, of Hinton, then pastor of the Presbyterian Church 
of that town, Rev. Jacob H. Lewis, of Muddy Creek, Greenbrier 
County, and Elder James Mann, of Alderson, Dr. Wightman 
being the moderator. There were twenty-six names enrolled at 
the organization. The first records of that church are made in 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 313 



what I take to be the handwriting of the Hon. Wm. Haynes, the 
name of the church being selected as "Keller Church" at that time, 
and the following officers were elected, to-wit: elders, John Hinch- 
man and William Haynes; deacon, Henry F. Kesler; Rev. Jacob 
H. Lewis was unanimously selected as the first pastor of that 
church, it being arranged that he should preach at Keller's Church 
and Riverview on the same Sunday, preaching twice a month, 
beginning on the 25th day of December, 1887. William Haynes 
was the clerk of the organization, and was afterwards made clerk 
of the church. 

William Haynes was the first representative from the church 
to the Presbytery, and was appointed on the 16th day of Septem- 
ber, 1888. The second pastor was Rev. E. D. Jeffries, and the 
Lowell and Alderson Churches were grouped together. The first 
financial statement made by Deacon H. F. Kesler, who reported 
for the benevolent boards, $24.49. Home missions, $8.00; educa- 
tion, $8.00; foreign missions, $6.00; publication, $2.50. The 
amount paid the first pastor, Mr. Lewis, for his services was $37.00. 

On the third day of March, 1889, George Keller was elected 
an elder, and J. Wm. Gwinn and James Gwinn, deacons. The first 
administration of the Lord's Supper was administered on this 
date. George Keller was the next representative to the Presbytery, 
with William Haynes, alternate. Wm. Haynes was appointed by 
the meeting delegate to the Synod, and John Hinchman, alternate. 
Rev. Geo. T. Lyle was the third pastor of this church, and served 
the same one Sunday of each month, preaching the same date at 
Riverview, for which he was paid the salary of $125.00. 

On the 19th day of July, the following testimonial was entered 
on the records of the church in regard to the death of Mr. John 
Hinchman : 

"Whereas, It has pleased Almighty God, in His infinite love 
and wisdom, to remove from the church militant to the church 
triumphant our friend and fellow member, John Hinchman ; and 

"Whereas, Our brother has been identified with the Presby- 
terian Church as a member, deacon and ruling elder for more than 
fifty years ; therefore, resolved, 

"First. That our church has lost one of its chief supporters 
and brother, who, by his upright and consistent life of sixty-nine 
years, has stamped his impress upon this community, and of whom 
we believe it can be verily said, 'He walked with God.' 

"Second. That a copy of these resolutions be sent to the be- 



314 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



reaved family, and that they be spread on the church records and 
published in the 'Central Presbyterian and Monroe Watchman/ 
by order of the session. 

(Signed) : WM. HAYNES, Clerk." 

On the 11th day of August, 1896, Henry F. Kesler and James 
Gwinn, who was a son of Andrew Gwinn, were each elected elders, 
and John Hinchman and Andrew Campbell were each elected 
deacons, and they were duly ordained by Pastor G. T. Lyle, on the 
17th day of October, 1896. At this date the minister's salary was 
$14.00 short, for the payment of which the officers proceeded im- 
mediately to arrange. 

We give below the resolution of this church on the death of the 
Hon. Wm. Haynes, who had been its clerk from its foundation to 
the 17th day of April, 1897: 

"Whereas, It has pleased the Lord Jesus Christ, the great head 
of the church, to take to Himself our beloved brother, William 
Haynes, and member of the session of this church and its only 
clerk since its organization. 

"Resolved, That what has been Brother Haynes's gain has been, 
as far as we can see, a severe loss to our church and session. 

Second. That we hereby give testimony to the faithfulness of 
Brother Haynes in the discharge of all duties, and our high appre- 
ciation of him as a gentleman and a counselor in affairs, and as a 
follower of Christ. 

"Third. That we extend our sympathies to his bereaved family 
and forward them a copy of these resolutions, that they may have 
evidence of our high appreciation of the husband and father they 
have lost." 

Henry F. Kesler was elected at this date clerk of the church, 
and remains such to this day. 

The organ for this church was purchased during the year 1897. 
The Greenbrier Presbytery was entertained by this church at its 
session in 1898, and on the 19th day of February of that year James 
Gwinn, Andrew L. Campbell, John Hinchman, Jr., and H. F. Kes- 
ler were selected as the trustees of the church, and certified to the 
circuit court for appointment. Rev. Geo. T. Lyle remained pastor 
of this church until his resignation on account of ill health, on 
December 16, 1899, and Rev. J. H. Lewis was again selected as 
pastor, which he accepted, afterwards resigning, and F. P. Syden- 
stricker was engaged as the present pastor of this church, who is 
still the pastor. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 315 



The church edifice at this time consists of a neat frame build- 
ing, which was built and completed just prior to the organization 
of the church in 1887, and was dedicated on June 26, 1887, the 
dedication sermon being preached by Rev. John Brown, then of 
Maiden, and now of Lewisburg. 

I am enabled to give the history of this church by the courtesy 
of Mr. James Gwinn, who kindly furnished me the records of the 
session ending January 20, 1900. Marshall Johnson has also been 
elected as an elder of the church. 

While this church building was owned by the Presbyterian 
denomination, they permitted its use once a month, when desired 
by the Methodists and other denominations, being an instance of 
the growing liberty and generosity of one Christian denomination 
towards another in these modern times. A church parsonage lot 
has been given by Mr. George Keller to the church as a donation, 
but no building has as yet been erected thereon. 

GREEN SULPHUR PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH. 

The Presbyterian Church at Green Sulphur Springs was organ- 
ized June 19, 1881, with about twenty-six members, most, if not 
all, of whom were transferred from the McElhenney Presbyterian 
Church at Grassy Meadows, Greenbrier County. The first ruling 
elders were A. A. Miller, Michael Hutchinson and Dr. N. W. Noel, 
the last being clerk of session. Thos. A. George was deacon. He 
still holds that office. 

The church building was erected in 1880, and was dedicated 
October 16th of the same year, Rev. John C. Brown preaching the 
sermon. 

Long before the organization, Rev. John McElhenney, of Lewis- 
burg, would occasionally preach to the people in a private house. 
Later, services were more regularly maintained in the Baptist 
church building by Rev. James Haynes, Rev. David S. Syden- 
stricker (now D. D.) and Rev. Jacob H. Lewis. 

Since organization the church has been served by the following 



ministers : 

Rev. Jacob H. Lewis 1881—1884 

Rev. J. W. Wightman, D. D 1884— 188Q 

Rev. Jacob H. Lewis 1889—1894 

Rev. George T. Lyle. . . 1894—1899 

Rev. F. P. Sydenstricker 1899—1903 

Rev. N. A. Parker 1904 — present 



316 .HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



FAIRVIEW BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The Fairview Baptist Church at Forest Hill, Summers County, 
West Virginia, was organized under the name of "Little Wolf 
Creek Baptist Church" on the 21st day of May, 1859. 

Rev. W. G. Margrave, Rev. M. Ellison, Rev. John Bragg and 
Rev. Rufus Pack composed the Presbytery, with Rufus Pack as 
chairman and G. W. Peters, secretary. This church was organized 
with twenty-five members, with John Bragg as pastor and James A. 
Hutchinson, church clerk; John Woodrum, James Ferell and James 
K. Scott, deacons. 

The pastorate of Rev. John Bragg continued from the organi- 
zation to January, 1862. 

The Civil War being in progress, the church had no pastor 
from January, 1862, till May, 1863, when Rev. Rufus Pack was 
elected pastor, preaching only on Sundays, and only occasionally 
on account of the war. Beginning with August 3, 1866, the church 
held reguiar services, with Rev. Rufus Pack as pastor, who con- 
- tined in this capacity till January, 1873. At the February meeting 
in 1873, Rev. James Sweeney was chosen pastor, and he served the 
church faithfully till September, 1875. 

In December, 1875, Rev. A. D. Bolton was elected pastor, serv- 
ing the church regularly till December, 1882. 

Rev. G. W. Wesley was the pastor from October, 1883, till 
August, 1885. 

Rev. W. F. Hank was called to the pastorate, and served in this 
capacity from August, 1885, till July, 1893. 

Rev. J. B. Chambers began his work as pastor June, 1894, and 
was succeeded in 1897 by Rev. J. W. Crawford, who continued as 
pastor till September, 1903. 

The pastorate of Rev. H. McLaughlin began January, 1904, and 
ended with the year. 

The church then called Rev. J. B. Chambers for the second time, 
and who is now the pastor. 

A. M. Hutchinson, church clerk, to whom I am indebted for 
information. 

Charles Garten, Sen. A. M. Hutchinson, Major James Hutch- 
inson, J. C. W'oodson, H. A. and J. D. Bolton and others were 
members and strong supporters of this church. A substantial 
frame church was erected at Forest Hill some twenty years ago 
by the efforts of these and other members. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



317 



ST. PATRICK'S CHURCH. 

This church was organized on the 25th day of April, 1874, by 
Father D. P. Walsh, who remained its pastor for more than twenty- 
five years. He proceeded, in the early days of the town, to select 
with excellent judgment the lot, 50x 140 feet, and procured from 
the C. & O. Railroad a deed on the 26th of May, 1874, for which he 
paid $100.00, and the lot was conveyed for church purposes, B. R. 
Dunn being the negotiator, for what has eventually become one 
of the best and most desirable lots in the city of Hinton, for his 
church buildings, and Father "Walsh proceeded in 1878 to erect 
thereon a one-story frame house of worship, with rooms for the 
pastor connected therewith. (The same has recently been remod- 
eled, and is now occupied by the present pastor, and Heflin, Lively 
& Higginbotham, as law offices.) 

• This church building was occupied until 1898, when a new, 
modern brick church was erected, with basement, the construction 
being superintended by Father YVerniger. The pastors since the 
resignation of Father Walsh have been Fathers Gormerly, Sulli- 
van and Swint. the present pastor in charge, and who has been in 
charge since the first of the year 1905. The bell was placed in the 
church in the fall of that year. This was the first Catholic organi- 
zation in all this region of the State. 

Father Walsh, as he is familiarly known, is still a resident of 
this city, and is one of the old pioneers of the town and the Catholic 
organizer throughout this section. He ministered to all Catholics 
from Alderson west to Kanawha Falls, and from Beckley to Spring- 
dale. And it was under Father Walsh and his supervision that the 
Catholic Church of St. Kerrens, at Springdale, Fayette County, 
was erected, and the Church of St. Coleman, on Irish Mountain, in 
Raleigh County, was constructed. He is a native of Ireland, emi- 
grating to this country in his younger days : was educated for the 
priesthood at St. Vincent's College, Y\ 'heeling. He was the mis- 
sionary Catholic pastor for all this region above mentioned, from 
the 29th day of April. 1874, until his acceptance of a pastorate in 
another mission in 1897. having been installed by Bishop Whalan. 
the first Bishop of Wheeling, and he is justly entitled to the name 
of the "Father of Catholicism" in all this region of the State, travel- 
ing over mountains, ministering to the spiritual wants and welfare 
of the Catholics wherever they may be found, whether in congre- 
gations or in separate families, situated in isolated locations in the 
mountains and what was then a practical wilderness. 



318 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



After his change of location, he for a short time was transferred 
to a church at Rollesburg, Preston County, but soon afterwards 
returned to Hinton, being attached to his old town, and is now 
and has remained a citizen of this city, much beloved by his old 
parishioners and those friends who know him best. 

One of the first, if not the first, Catholic families to settle within 
the limits of the county was James Hurley, a native of Ireland, 
who bought 400 acres of land on the Lick Creek side of the high- 
est part of Keeney's Knob, where he raised a family of six children 
■ — Morris L., who emigrated to Kansas and died ; William, who 
now lives in Kansas, and Michael, who lives in Raleigh County, 
and Nora, Mary and Bridget, who married Joseph Dick. They 
were thrifty and devout people. Another Catholic settlement was 
made by Irish emigrants on the mountain above Elton, consisting 
of the Hurleys, Twohigs, Connellys and McGuires. These pioneer 
Catholic settlers were visited by Father Wallace, an itinerant priest 
from White Sulphur and Lewisburg. The only Catholic Church 
in the county or ever organized therein, is that of St. Patrick's in 
. Hinton, founded by Father Walsh. 

TALCOTT M. E. CHURCH SOUTH. 

This charge was organized in 1883. The first preacher in charge 
was Rufus M.Wheeler, who remained for one year, and those preach- 
ers in charge since that date are as follows : J. L. Hendersen, three 
years; S. S. Troy, one year; T. J. Miller, two years; I. J. Michael, 
one year ; J. J. Crickenberger, three years ; J. G. May, four years ; 
H. A. Wilson, four years; C. B. LeFew, one year; H. Lawson, 
one year; S. R. Snead, three years, and is the present pastor. A 
comfortable parsonage has been acquired, the title to which is 
held by B. L. Kessler, J. F. Leftwich, Granger Holstine, Richard 
McNeer and Jas. M. Allen, trustees, confirmed by the circuit court 
February 2, 1895. All of these trustees are the descendants of 
pioneer settlers in this section. B. L. Kessler is a son of Abraham 
C. Kessler; J. F. Leftwich, a son of David Leftwich; Granger 
Holstine, the son of Thomas Holstine, who has for many years 
been one of the mainstays and principal retainers of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church South in this county. He married a Kincaid, 
one of the descendants of the old settler, and whose wife inherited 
one of the interests in the town upon which Talcott is located, 
and was a party to the famous Carnes case, but had no interest 
therein at that time by reason of her having aliened her title long 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 319 



before. Richard McNeer, a citizen of Forest Hill, is a descendant 
of the ancient McNeer family of Monroe. Jas. M. Allen is a son 
of the old Methodist patriarch, Nathaniel Allen, of Pisgah. 

A neat frame house of worship was erected soon after the or- 
ganization of the church on the bank of the Greenbrier. 

METHODIST EPISCOPAL CHURCH AT FOREST HILL. 

This church was organized a number of years before the war. 
The first church building was a log house on the site where the 
present frame house stands. The frame church was dedicated in 
1860 by Rev. Phelps, a famous Methodist presiding elder who lived 
at Lewisburg. It was then in Peterstown Circuit and a part of 
the Baltimore Conference. The church building was one of the 
very first frame churches ever built in the county, and it was part 
of the property over which there was strenuous litigation after the 
war, it being claimed by the southern branch of the church, but the 
title was in the mother church. In 1867 the southern church was or- 
ganized at Forest Hill by Rev. Caddin Wiseman, who was the first 
preacher. He was on the circuit for one year, and was succeeded by 
Rev. Snapp, then by Rev. Troy, Rev. John Canter, Rev. Rufus M. 
Wheeler, who served five years, in the Peterstown Circuit four, and 
Talcott Circuit, one, which latter circuit was constructed at the time 
and Forest Hill included therein. Reverends J. Kyle Gilbert, J. L. 
Henderson, Michael, G. S. Mayes, La Few, and Rev. Snead being 
the present pastor. This church was used for many years by 
justices of the peace to hold their courts and by public speakers 
for political meetings and other public purposes. Celebrated ora- 
tors, such as Senator Frank Hereford, Captain R. F. Dennis, 
Henry Mason Matthews, and other noted statesmen have ad- 
dressed the people therein. In the church lot is located one of the 
oldest graveyards in the county, and many of the pioneer settlers 
are buried there. This graveyard is at least seventy-five years 
old. Rev. Adam P. Boude, the eloquent minister, preached his 
first sermon in this church. As stated above, the church property 
belonged to the Methodist Episcopal Church before the Civil War 
and before the split in that church by which the M. E. Church 
South was created. The old organization after the war took pos- 
session, locked the building against ministers and people of the 
new organization, which was formed about 1867, but these radical 
members moved off to Ohio, and those remaining being of a more 
liberal, tolerant and conservative disposition, the doors were later 



320 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



thrown open in a true Christian spirit, and the Church South has 
for many years had full use of the building, controlling the same, 
the legal title remaining in the northern branch of the church, of 
which members are very few at this time, some twelve in number. 
The Church South at that place has a membership of seventy. 
The church building is one of the best in the county. It was used 
for many years as a place for holding the elections. At that time 
the voters for many miles around went to Forest Hill to vote. It 
was then known as the "Farms." The Bucklands and Grimmetts 
from Big Creek, the voters to the mouth of Greenbrier, and ex- 
tending to the Red Sulphur Springs, came to Forest Hill to vote. 
Later, Indian Mills precinct was established, the large grist mill 
now owned by C. A. Baber and others was built, and it divided 
the honors with Forest Hill. At Forest Hill there has been as 
many as two stores for many years. It had a large tobacco fac- 
tory at one time, and there is a strong Missionary Baptist Church 
congregation at that place, also at which there is a cemetery, and 
in the yard of which is the monument to Mike Foster, the brave 
Confederate soldier, was unveiled in 1907. 

INDIAN MILLS CHRISTIAN CRURCH. 

I am unable to give as complete a record of this church as it is 
entitled to, but give the best information which I am able to ascer- 
tain. I am under obligations to Rev. G. W. Ogden, a very promi- 
nent citizen of Raleigh County and an able minister of the Christian 
Church, and to Mr. Wm. A. Lowe, of Indian Mills, for facts we are 
enabled to present. 

This church was organized at Indian Mills in the year 1865, by 
Messrs. Ballard and Cowgill, with an original membership of 
fifteen communicants. There has been during the intervening years 
as many as 200 members added from time to time, many of whom 
have died, while others have removed and sought new homes in 
other sections of the country, and are not now residents of the 
county and State. 

Church property of the value of $800 has been acquired, and 
the congregation now occupies a neat, comfortable frame church 
at the Mills, mouth of Bradshaw's Run, and the title is held by 
deed to the trustees. Among the regular pastors were Rev. Pow- 
hatan B. Baber, the father of Charles A. Baber; Rev. James D. 
Johnston, Rev. A. T. Maupin and Rev. C. H. Poage. 

Many protracted meetings have been held at this church, some 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 321 



by the regular pastors and others by evangelists, including Rev- 
erends J. D. Hamaker, Arthur Thorns, R. W. Lilly and J. C. 
Reynolds. 

CENTRAL BAPTIST CHURCH. 

Rev. Wilbur F. Hank, who is mentioned in this narrative, is 
a native of Monroe County, now living at Land Crafts Ferry. He 
is a son of an ancient Monroe family, the son of Rev. Jehu Hank, 
a Methodist (E. South), who was known far and wide for his great 
ability as a singer and musician, and his son is endowed with the 
same accomplishment : besides, he is an eloquent and practical 
missionary Baptist minister. He owns a handsome residence and 
has reared an accomplished family, one son being a Baptist min- 
ister at Kenova, and who married Miss Haynes, a daughter of 
Joseph N. Haynes ; another son is an employee of the C. & O. 
Railway as agent at Belva, W. Va. Mr. Hank has many times 
been urged to become a candidate for the Legislature by his Demo- 
cratic friends, but has declined. He is a prominent and useful 
citizen. 

The Central Baptist Church of Hinton was organized in the 
old Bruce Hall, which was afterwards remodeled, and is now known 
as Hotel Miller, in 1894. The first pastor was Rev. Mullaney, a 
minister from Pennsylvania. After using the old Bruce Hall for 
some time, the Opera House of Col. J. A. Parker was rented, which 
was occupied as a church for six months, at which time the church 
purchased the building on the corner of Second and Ballangee 
Streets, now occupied by Charlton & Grimmett as a storeroom, 
which was fitted tip and occupied as a church for some time. Later, 
this property was sold, and a lot 48 x 70 feet purchased from James 
H. Miller on Ballangee Street, on which a modern frame church 
building was erected. 

Mr. Mullaney undertook to operate the politics of the city of 
Hinton, and became quite unpopular, although a very interesting 
and eloquent preacher, so that his pastorate continued for only 
about one year. The next pastor was Rev. C. T. Kirtner, a native 
of Mercer County, who married a daughter of Mr. Joseph Nowlin, 
of Pence's Springs. He was the first pastor to occupy the pulpit 
of the new church building, and did excellent work for his congre- 
gation while pastor. The third pastor was Rev. George Spencer, 
of Philadelphia, who remained with the church about two years, 
and then resigned. 

After his resignation Rev. A. A. McClelland was called by the 



322 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



congregation, and served them satisfactorily for two years, resign- 
ing of his own accord, after which the present pastor, Rev. H. W. 
Stoneham, was called, and took charge. Rev. Stoneham resigned 
in 1905, to accept a more advantageous call at the old Sweet Springs 
Church, in Monroe County. 

The church, from the date of its organization, has continually 
grown. It encumbered its property with a large debt upon its 
organization, which it has been gradually decreasing. George W. 
Thomas, J. A. Graham, Joseph Grady, of the gentlemen, and Mrs. 
E. A. Gooch, Mrs. Julia Huddleston, Mrs. A. H. Phillips and Mrs. 
G. W. Thomas, of the ladies, are active and leading members of 
this congregation and in the church work. 

The first trustees were : Geo. W. Thomas, J. A. Graham and 
Joseph Grady. 

This church organization originatel from a "split" in the First 
Baptist Church, by reason of dissensions growing out of the calling 
of Rev. W. W. Smith, an evangelist who had formerly held a great 
revival in the city of Hinton. A portion of the congregation of the 
- First Baptist Church were dissatisfied with the calling of Mr. Smith, 
whose call, however, was regular and by a majority of the church 
members. The minority, however, refused to accede to the action 
of the majority, and formed a separate organization, having au- 
thority as provided under the rules and regulations of the Mission- 
ary Baptist Church. 

The baptistry for this church was erected in 1907, through the 
enterprise of its lady members, and the church debt eliminated, 
which was also largely due to those devout lady members. Rev. 
Hall is the present pastor by recent election in 1907. 

OAK GROVE M. E. CHURCH SOUTH. 

This church is about three miles from Talcott, and is a neat 
frame church, which has been built in recent years to take the place 
of the old log church which was one of the first built in the county. 
The trustees are Thomas J. Holstine and Wilson Maddy, confirmed 
in 1880. Both are descendants of old settlers. Mr. Thomas J. Hol- 
stine is one of the pillars, of the Methodist Church in this county, 
and one of the county's best citizens. He married a Miss Kincaid, 
a descendant of the old settler at Talcott. He resides on the Big 
Bend Mountain, near the Pisgah Church, of which he is one of the 
principal retainers. Richard McNeer is a direct descendant of the 
old settler of Monroe of that name. This county had within its 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 323 



borders, and has to this day, as pure a type of Americanism as any 
county within the Commonwealth. There are a few that even to 
this day might be deemed foreigners — that is, those who came direct 
from foreign lands — as will be noticed from the names of persons 
holding important positions, as in this case of MeNeer and Holstine. 
Rev. Sneed is the present pastor. Squire W. C. Hedrick and J. F. 
Leftwich are active officers of the church, which is situated at 
Ballengee Post Office. 

BLUESTONE BAPTIST CHURCH. 

The Bluestone Baptist Church, now located at Jumping Branch, 
was organized in the year 1798, in the house of Rev. Josiah Meador, 
on Little Bluestone River. The house was a double log cabin, 
with a dirt floor, where the people met to worship for several 
years. Eventually a rude log house was built. It had but one 
door and no windows. In this building they worshiped for many 
years. The membership was small and scattered from the mouth 
of East River, in Giles County, Virginia, to the marshes' of Coal, 
in Raleigh County. Although living so far from the place of wor- 
ship, these people gathered on Friday evening before their regu- 
lar appointment and stayed until Monday, having preaching twice 
on Saturday and twice on Sunday. Monday morning at an early 
hour they started for their homes, thankful for the privilege of 
meeting each other and worshiping the God of their fathers. 

Rev. Josiah Meador was their first pastor, who served them 
for several years. He was succeeded by Rev. Rev. Jackson Keaton. 
After a long, successful pastorate Rev. James Ellison became their 
pastor. He was the father of the late Matthew Ellison, and his 
pastorate was a successful one. As the country was being settled 
the membership seemed to drift towards Jumping Branch, and a 
log house was built near that place, which was burned. The people 
came together and built another on the same foundation. In after 
years they built a log house on the hill near the old Lilly farm, 
which was burned by the Federal troops in time of the war. In 
the burning of this house all of the old records were destroyed. 
Rev. Matthew Ellison became its pastor. He was succeedeed by 
Rev Rufus Pack, who served them until he moved West. Rev. 
John Bragg also served the church as pastor, perhaps before Rev. 
Rufus Pack. After Rev. Rufus Pack, Rev. Lewis Kincaid was 
pastor, and served the church until his death. He preached his 
last sermon in the church that now stands at Jumping Branch. 



324 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



He complained of not being well, and after preaching Sunday morn- 
ing, he mounted his horse and rode to the home of Allen Mead- 
ows, on New River, and was not able to go home, and after a 
week or more of suffering he died. Rev. R. H. Stuart then became 
the pastor. His pastorate was short. He was succeeded by Rev. 
A. D. Bolton. In the spring of 1890, W. F. Hank was called to the 
pastorate, and served them until January, 1906, and to his cour- 
tesy I am indebted for information concerning this church. 

A new, neat and comfortable frame church is now in use by this 
congregation. Mr. G. F. Meadows, the merchant, is one of the 
"pillars" of that church. He devotes much of his best energies 
for its progress and advancement, and occasionally fills the pulpit 
acceptably to the congregation, being a good minister, as well as a 
good merchant. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



HOTELS. 

At the beginning there were, of course, no hotels. in the county, 
nor what may be termed boarding houses. A number of the citizens 
took out licenses for what was called private entertainment, as 
Hon. Gordon Jordan, of Pipestem, did, and entertained a great 
number of persons passing through to Princeton and Mercer 
County. The attorneys from Monroe and Greenbrier who attended 
the Mercer courts almost universally "stopped with" Mr. Jordan. 
Among these were U. S. Senator Frank Hereford, of Union ; Col. 
Jas. W. Davis, of Lewisburg; Senator John E. Kenna, of Charles- 
ton, as well as, frequently, the judges. Mr. Jordan kept "open 
house" on his farm near Pipestem, a kind of half-way point. Rev. 
Rufus Pack, who lived on the Plumley farm, at the lower end of 
which was the old log house, the first court house ; James Keatley, 
at mouth of Indian; John A. Richmond, at mouth of Lick Creek; 
Dr. John G. Manser, at mouth of Greenbrier; Nick Deeds (C. B.), 
at Jumping Branch. Each kept houses of entertainment, for which 
they had license from the county court now corresponding to our 
modern hotels. Also C. E. Stevenson at the brick house near Jump- 
ing Branch. 

Mrs. M. S. Gentry opened up the first boarding house in Hin- 
ton in the old Hinton log house, where Joe and Silas were born. 

The first hotel was built by W. C. Ridgeway, one of the first set- 
tlers, who erected a three-story frame hotel on the site of the corner 
of Third Avenue and Front Street, now familiarly known as "Scrap- 
per's Corner," owned by Mrs. R. S. Tyree. Mr. Ridgeway was 
something of a notorious character, being a Democrat, without 
religious connections ; warm and generous of heart ; a liquor seller, 
whether license was granted or not, and indicted many times. It 
was, without confirmation, claimed that Mr. Ridgeway vended his 
own spirits in the basement of his hotel, and that he therein oper- 
ated a moonshine distillery. Several years after the erection of this 
building it was destroyed by fire, and in the basement were a lot 



326 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

of irons and pipes which may have been a distillery. If so, it was 
not discovered by the lynx-eyed officers of Uncle Sam. About the 
same time that this building was constructed the Wickham House 
was built on the opposite corner by M. A. Riffe, now owned by 
Col. J. A. Parker. This was owned and operated a number of years 
by M. A. Riffe, a son of D. M. Riffe, and was considered a fine hotel 
in those days. Perkins & Sprowel, about the same time, built the 
New River Hotel, lower down on Front Street, where the Perkins 
Hotel is now standing (now owned by H. Ewart), and which is 
operated and known as the Chesapeake Hotel, being a three-story 
brick, with an "L" on Fourth Avenue, having about forty rooms. 
The old Sprowel & Perkins building was a long two-story building. 
A. B. Perkins, one of the first settlers of Hinton, and now residing 
in the city of Parkersburg, was the builder of this old hotel, and, 
later, the Chesapeake on the same site and he also built the brick 
hotel at the ferry opposite the present old frame freight depot, 
about 1885. 

Furgeson Brothers, early in the eighties, built a three-story 
brick hotel on Third Avenue, across the alley from the D. H. Peck 
property, where the "Hinton Leader" office is now operated. How- 
ever, one of the first, if not the very first, hotels in the city of Hinton 
was the building of J. M. Carden, now occupied as an apartment 
house, opposite the court house. This was known as the Hotel 
Hotchkiss, and was operated for some time by John M. Carden as 
proprietor. The only hotel ever operated in Upper Hinton or Avis 
was the old Sperry House, which was one of the first, and is the 
house long since abandoned as a hotel and used as a residence, 
owned by the Wm. James Sons Co., above the Silas Hinton home- 
stead at the Upper Ferry. This house was entirely surrounded by 
the flood of 1878, but little damage, however, was done to it. 

The Brunswick Inn, a frame structure near the present passen- 
ger depot, was erected by H. Ewart. All of the original hotels were 
wooden houses. Wickham House (Riffe's), the Hinton Hotel 
(Ridgeway's), Central Hotel (Furgeson's), New River Hotel (Per- 
kin's), were all destroyed by fire at different times. The Hotel 
Miller was opened by James W. Miller about 1894, opposite the 
court house square, a two-story frame building, and is still operated 
by him ; the Brunswick is still being operated by John Orndoff ; 
the Chesapeake Hotel by E. N. Faulconer, and the Riverside by 
Col. J. A. Parker. This is a frame three-story house built by Col. 
J. A. Parker some eight years ago. 

The city of Hinton has never had an up-to-date, modern hotel. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 327 



The Hinton Hotel Co. is now constructing a new building of brick 
and concreate opposite the corner of the court house square, with 100 
rooms for guests, which is expected to be an all-around, up-to-date 
hostelry, and will be, if completed according to present plans, a 
monument to the enterprise of the city, and at this time no name 
has been selected for it. Messrs. Wm. Plumley, W. H. Warren, 
J. T. McCreery, H. Ewart, Jas. H. Miller and T. H. Lilly are the 
chief promoters of the enterprise. It will likely be named Hotel 
McCreery. 

A new frame hotel of thirty-two rooms is now being built at 
Talcott by Messrs. Dunn & Willey, enterprising merchants of that 
town. There has been a two-story frame hotel operated at Lowell 
for some twenty years, built by A. C. Lowe, and now operated by 
the estate of C. W. Spotts, deceased. The Greenbrier Springs Com- 
pany, in 1905, erected a twenty-five-room, three-story frame hotel 
at Greenbrier Springs, known as the Greenbrier Springs Hotel. 

HOTEL McCREERY. 

The new hotel in Hinton has been completed since this chapter 
was begun. It has been named the McCreery Hotel, for Thomas 
J. McCreery, the president of the company which constructed it. 
It is six stories, with 100 rooms. The building cost $90,000. the 
lot, $12,500, and the furniture, $12,000. It is a modern hotel com- 
plete in all its equipments — baths, electric lights, electric elevators, 
baths in the rooms, a telephone system complete, by which a person 
in any room can talk to a person in New York, Chicago or San 
Francisco. • 

It is a monument to the town and to the enterprise of the men 
who built it, especially to T. J. McCreery, the president ; H. Ewart, 
secretary; T. H. Lilly, J. H. Jordan, Jas. H. Miller and William H. 
Warren, the board of directors, upon whom the burdens fell; the 
greater part, however, on the building committee, composed of 
T. H. Lilly, J. T. McCreery and H. Ewart. Frank N. Milburn was 
the chief architect, and for making the plans received $1,000.00. 
The lot was purchased of A. E. and James H. Miller in May, 1905. 
The building was completed September 1, 1907, and thrown open 
to the public. A. E. Kelly, of Sparta, Kentucky, was elected man- 
ager. The building is 90 x 100 feet, fronting on Second Avenue and 
Ballangee Street, opposite the court house park. 

Among the enterprising citizen stockholders, and in addition to 
those named, are Frank Puckett, C. B. Mahon, R. R. Flanagan, 



328 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



M. M. Meador, J. C. James, W. L. Fredeking, John Haynes, Wm. 
Plumley, Jr., Lee Walker, Mayor Litsinger, R. L. Jones, Wm. H. 
Sawyers, J. Donald Humphries, M. M. Meador and J. B. Douglas. 
There were some others who entered into the enterprise, but their 
nerve gave way, and they undertook to throw down and defeat the 
enterprise for selfish motives, who deserve no glory or credit. 

The building is supplied with heat by steam. The dining-room 
is on the second floor. The street floor contains the lobby and five 
store or business rooms. It is the greatest and costliest structure, 
constructed to this time in the county, and, as are all the other 
enterprises of Hinton, is due to the enterprise of Hinton citizens, 
and was built with their money. 



CHAPTER XIX. 



POLITICAL. 

The county was created seven years after the close of the Civil 
War, generally known as the Rebellion in history. The larger part 
of the people in the territory of the county were sympathizers with 
the Southern cause, with a respectable minority, however, who 
favored the Union cause. A large number and majority were fa- 
vorable to the maintenance of the American Union, and opposed 
secession, but after their State had adopted that course, they con- 
sidered their loyalty to their State first, and followed the Confed- 
erate flag. The larger number of those who took part as soldiers 
volunteered or were drafted into the Confederate Army. Those 
opposed to dissolution of the Union were known as Union men, and 
those who sustained its action in seceding, believing in the doctrine of 
State rights under the Federal Constitution, and that that instrument 
gave each State the authority to secede at its pleasure, were called 
Confederates. There was another class of Union men who adopted 
the other course, and adhered to the Government of the United 
States, and remained loyal to that government during the four 
years of hostilities. This class was in a considerable minority in 
the territory of this county, as the great majority had either allied 
themselves as active participants or as sympathizers with the Con- 
federate cause, so that directly after the war the party known as 
the Confederate Conservative Party sprang up, which soon after- 
wards evolved into the Democratic party, while the Northern, or 
Union, or Federal sympathizers generally went to the Republican 
party. The anti-war party affiliations being generally severed, 
the life of the Whig party had become extinct. Many former 
Whigs became Democrats, and many former Democrats became 
Republicans, then a comparatively new party which had come into 
power in 1861, on the election of Abraham Lincoln as President. 
Generally, at that time, the ex-Confederate soldiers allied themselves 
with the Conservative or Democratic party, as then called, although 
there were some loyal Confederate soldiers who believed in the 



330 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Republican doctrine of the tariff, and voted for Republican policies 
from the beginning. 

The party prejudices from the suspension of hostilities and at 
the time of the formation of Summers County, were rank and bitter, 
and party lines in national affairs and State politics closely drawn, 
but in local affairs the strictest partisanship was not exhibited. 
Party conventions and nominations were not customary in those 
days, except for political offices, nor even for members of the House 
of Delegates for a number of years after the formation of the county, 
but for State Senate and the higher offices conventions were op- 
erative. 

The Democratic party was largely in the ascendency in the 
county at the date and after its formation ; or, rather, after the 
adoption of the "Flick amendment" to the Constitution of the State 
had been accepted. The colored vote was then and has always been 
since, entirely and solidly Republican ; the white vote divided, with 
a very considerable preponderance to the Democratic side. The 
colored vote at the date of the formation of the county was small, 
there having been few slaves within its borders, and did not exceed 
100 in number. Dr. Thomas Fowler, of "Wildwood," at the mouth 
of Indian Creek ; William Crump, of Crump's Bottom ; the Gwinns 
and the Grahams and Anderson Pack were the only slave owners, 
and they generally held but few. 

John Miller, Sr., the grandfather of the writer, had owned three 
slaves, one man and two women, but they had been liberated before 
his death and before the war and set free, and provision made for 
their comfortable maintenance. 

The first political nomination or convention of which we are able 
to learn within the county was a mass-meeting called and held in 
the grove on the hill in what is now within the confines of the city 
of Avis, at the place where Dwight James now resides, at the new 
high school, and out of this meeting grew dissatisfaction and fac- 
tional differences, which continued and existed for a generation or 
longer. This mass-meeting was called for the purpose of nominat- 
ing a candidate for delegate to the House of Delegates, and one 
hour was fixed in the call, but on account of another hour being 
more convenient, or certain persons desiring to be "too soon" for 
the other, the meeting was called to order and held at a different 
hour. The vote was taken by each voter writing the name of his 
choice on a slip of paper, and a hat passed around for the reception 
of the votes. Hon. Wm. Haynes, the nominee, was made the can- 
didate for the party at this election, which was to be held in the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 331 



year 1874, it being a Democratic mass-meeting to nominte a candi- 
date for the Legislature. Hon. Elbert Fowler, then a young attor- 
ney, son of Dr. Thomas Fowler, whose career and the unfortunate 
termination of whose life is hereafter detailed fully, was voted for, 
but he was not a candidate, and it was without his consent. 

Great dissatisfaction resulted from this meeting, it being claimed 
that the voting was unfair ; that every person was allowed to vote 
as often as they pieased, etc., while, on the other hand, it was 
claimed to have been entirely fair. The dissatisfied element organ- 
ized an opposition, led by Mr. Fowler, Dr. Benj. P. Gooch, then a 
young physician and the first man who settled in the town of Hin- 
ton; E. C. Stevenson and others. The Hon Sylvester Upton de- 
clared himself an independent candidate. No complaints were made 
against Mr. Haynes as a man or against his personal character, but 
the fight was against the manner of his candidacy. Mr. Upton was 
a Republican, a Union man, and had been a delegate to the Legis- 
lature from Mercer County, and was such member at the passage 
of the act creating the county, and voted for it. He was a man of 
character, conservative, broad-minded and popular. Mr. Haynes 
was one of the most eminent, cultured and distinguished citizens 
of the county, and was afterwards elected to the State Senate and 
Constitutional Convention held in 1872. 

An incident is recalled of Mr. Upton's legislative career. When 
a party measure was being pressed, a "whip" who was looking 
after Delegate Upton, said to him when he had been unsuccessful 
in coaching him, and desiring to appeal to his party prejudices: 
"Sir, are you not a Republican? If so, you will support this meas- 
ure," to which Mr. Upton quietly replied, "Yes, sir, I am a Repub- 
lican, but I was sent here to represent the interests of all my people, 
and I shall vote as my judgment dictates and as I deem it to their 
interests." 

Circulars were circulated throughout the county ; factional feel- 
ing was vigorous and strong, and a very hard-fought campaign 
was the result. Mr. Upton was elected, thus defeating the nominee, 
who was charged as a ring candidate, whether justly or unjustly, 
the people thus early showing a distaste for "ring rule," and stamp- 
ing their disapproval. 

Party nominations continued to be made only by the Democratic 
party for certain offices until the year 1884, the Republicans always 
uniting on Independent candidates, who were usually, but not 
always, Republicans in politics. 

In 1884, the Democratic party made nominations for a full county 



332 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ticket, except prosecuting attorney, there being no Republican law- 
yer then in the county, in which race Hon. Wm. R. Thompson, now 
of Huntington, and James H. Miller were the only candidates, and 
made a "scrub race." The Democratic and Republican committees 
decided to make no nomination for that office, and leave it to the 
people to determine between them, there existing at that time two 
factions of the Democratic party in the county, one of which was 
designated as the Fowler faction, and the other as the Thompson 
faction. Mr. Fowler supported Miller, and he was successful by the 
slim majority of only twenty-nine votes. 

No party nominations had been made prior to that election, and 
for several years after, for superintendent of free schools. In my 
chapter on Elections details and results are given as to the results 
of the various elections. The candidates for the superintendents of 
schools always ran as Independent, it being deemed advisable and 
the general policy and to the interest of the schools to keep the 
election of school officers out of politics, and for many years the 
election of school officers was held separate and on different dates 
from all other elections, and on "off" years, and no other candidates 
were voted for except school officers. 

The Democratic party has always been in the ascendancy in the 
county, and it is estimated the normal majority at this time is from 
150 to 200, if the party lines are strictly adhered to, which is seldom 
done in the selection of county officers, and there have been several 
Republicans who have filled important county offices since the for- 
mation of the county. The names of these Republicans who have 
been selected for county officers are as follows : 

Hon. Sylvester Upton, Republican member of the House of Dele- 
gates, elected in 1874. Elected on the Independent ticket. 

M. V. Calloway, Republican, elected as an Independent candi- 
date as sheriff, in 1884. 

And in 1894 the Republican party nominated a full ticket, which 
was elected in its entirety. 

Hon. M. J. Cook to the House of Delegates; Geo. W. Leftwich, 
Esq., superintendent of schools; James Allen Graham/commis- 
sioner of the county court. 

Many Republicans have been elected to district office.-. 

.Frank Lively, prosecuting attorney in 1900. 

Hon. T. P. Davis, member of the Senate for the district, of 
which Summers County was then a part; Jonathan F. Lilly, Repub- 
lican, having been elected in the year 1888 as superintendent of 
schools. Mr. Lilly was elected as an Independent candidate over 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 333 

John H. Jordan, Esq., the Democratic nominee, the son of Hon. 
G. L. Jordan. Mr. Lilly was afterwards killed by his brother-in-law, 
Thomas Meador, an account of which is given in this book. Mr. 
Jordan's defeat grew largely out of the prejudice engendered against 
him by reason of his being a material though unwilling witness in 
the trial growing out of the killing of Elbert Fowler. 

The only instance in which the county has gone Republican and 
elected the whole county Republican ticket, was, as before stated, 
in the year 1894, at which time they elected all of the county officers 
which were voted for, at which time the clerks of the courts and 
the sheriff were not elected at that election. 

About the year 1880, the new party, and one which has long 
since vanished from the earth, known as the "Greenback" party, 
cut quite a figure in the politics of this county, and its candidates 
received a considerable and respectable vote, the leaders of that 
party being Allen L. Harvey, Dr. Wm. H. Talley, L. G. Lowe, 
John P. Duncan and others. They founded a newspaper, known as 
the "Hinton Banner," which was edited by Dr. Talley; nominated 
a full ticket, and their candidates were generally supported by the 
Republicans. Dr. Talley was afterwards accidentally drowned in 
another State. He resided in those days at Mandeville, in Forest 
Hill District. He was an eccentric, peculiar man, well educated 
and intelligent, but had put his ability to little use. The voters 
of the party were made up from both of the old parties, but the 
"Greenbacker" in politics usually came from the Democratic ranks. 
Its candidates were defeated ; the party organization fell to pieces 
upon the death of Mr. Harvey, and the followers of the Greenback 
doctrines fell back into the old parties, some going to the Demo- 
cratic and some to the Republican party. For instance, Mr. L. G. 
Lowe, of Indian Mills, joined the Republican organization, while 
the sons of Mr. A. L. Harvey joined the Democratic ranks, and 
to-day there is no more loyal Republican than Mr. Lowe, nor 
better and more reliable Democrats than the Messrs. Harvey — 
James H., John E. and William L. 

The "People's party," upon its organization in this country, had 
a minority following for some years, from about 1890 to 1900, but 
never a very decisive vote. The populists of this county were with 
Mr. Bryan, and supported him for President in 1896; they prin- 
cipally followed him and the Democratic banner. The leaders of 
that political party and organization in the county were principally 
Messrs. I. D. Martin, now residing at Neponsit ; his brother, H. Z. 
Martin, now deceased; Mr. James H. Martin, of Green Sulphur 



334 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Springs, and others, very estimable, intelligent, sincere and honest 
citizens. Both the Messrs. Martins supported the Democratic ticket 
at this time. 

The Prohibition party has never had any material strength in 
the county, although it usually receives a few scattering votes. 
The Socialist and Socialist Labor party have never had any can- 
didates in this county, and have never received any votes in the 
county. The two political parties now under organization are the 
Democratic and Republican, with H. Ewart, Esq., chairman of the 
Democratic County Committee, and E. C. Eagle, Esq., an attorney 
at Hinton, chairman of the Republican County Committee. These 
gentlemen conducted the campaigns for their respective parties 
at the elections of 1.904. 

The disposition to embitter the campaigns with personalities 
still exists to some extent, and attacks are still being made on the 
personal character of the candidates, but not to the extent indulged 
in in the past political times in the county, and its indulgence is 
growing less, fortunately and properly, and where it is indulged 
" in now is frequently from indiscretion and inexperience and want 
" of breadth of character and generosity. The political parties, usu- 
ally, in this county have been fortunate in the nomination of men 
of character, and we hope to see the time when what is known as 
personal politics may be banished entirely, and this will come when 
the minds of the partisans are broadened by experience and ex- 
tended contact with broad-minded, patriotic people. While the 
political and official affairs of the county have been in the hands 
and under the control of Democrats from almost its foundation, 
it stands to the credit of all parties that no official scandals have 
occurred and can be justly charged to either party in this county. 
The authorities have all been honest, fair and just. The county 
has never been "bossed or ring-ridden ;" no financial failures of 
the officials or financial wrongs perpetrated upon the people, except 
in the one unfortunate instance of Evan Hinton, sheriff, in which 
he was the principal sufferer. The office of sheriff, no doubt, caused 
his financial failure, and, unfortunately for him, all of his property, 
as well as that of practically all of his sureties, was taken in pay- 
ment of public liabilities, but in the end the county did not suffer 
loss, although during his term, and for some time afterwards, the 
county paper was below par, and it was troublesome and hard to 
collect. 

At no other time during the history of the county has the county 
drafts and paper been below par, and it was as good at all times, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



335 



and accepted as cheerfully as if it had Uncle Sam behind it. The 
countv has never lost a penny from dishonest or unfaithful officials, 
and all settlements have been made and a clean slate left to pos- 
terity. 

The Democratic party was for a number of years split into two 
factions. The Fowler and the Thompson were known from almost 
the formation of the county to 1896., and the fights in numerous 
instances were bitter and unfortunate, but those party disturbances 
and disorganizations have with time disappeared, and almost com- 
plete harmony now prevails within the ranks of the party within 
the county, it having long since adopted and adhered to fair and 
equitable measure for making its nominations, so that no one from 
just cause can complain of the party's actions ; and, if complaint 
can at any time be justly made, it is from the injudicious actions 
of individuals, and not from the party organizations. A bobtailed 
trickster sometimes bobs up and tries to create factional animosi- 
ties, but his political life is usually nipped in the budding. 

The methods first adopted were those of public mass-meetings 
called of the Democratic voters of the party at the court house, to 
vote for their choice of candidates, and the one receiving the great- 
est number of votes was declared the nominee. Sometimes these 
votes were taken by ballot, and sometimes by division, but as the 
number of voters increased, and those nominations were necessarily 
made by a minority of the party, it being impossible to secure a 
majority attendance, dissatisfaction sprang up, and then the mode 
of calling district mass-meetings was adopted, by which the Demo- 
cratic voters of the Democratic party were called to meet at a fixed 
day and hour at one place in the various districts where the can- 
didates were voted for either by ballot viva voce, or by a division or 
rising vote. This gave general satisfaction for some time, but 
finally the plan of nominating by primary election, for which pro- 
visions had been made by statute enacted by the Legislature, was 
adopted. By this method the Executive Committee called an elec- 
tion to be held throughout the county at the voting precincts in 
each district, or of a part thereof, those entitled to vote being the 
Democratic voters, or those who will support the nominees. The 
election of officers, commissioners, clerks and challengers are sworn, 
the polls opened at an hour fixed by the county committee, and 
closed at a fixed hour in the afternoon, the vote being taken by 
ballots printed by the committee, with the name of each candidate 
for each office printed thereon, the voter erasing those names for 
whom he does not wish to vote. After the polls are closed, the 



336 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



results are ascertained by the commissioners of election and clerks 
and the ballots returned to the Executive Committee of the party, 
and the result declared. Before these committee contests can be 
had, the respective candidates receiving the highest number of 
votes being declared the nominees of the party. 

Usually a mass-meeting is called the week following the elec- 
tion, at which the announcements of the results are made and the 
nominations ratified, and at these meetings the delegates to con- 
ventions for the nomination of officers to be voted for outside the 
county are selected, or sometimes these delegates are selected by 
the voters on the day of the primary by the various district meet- 
ings., and this is the usual plan followed at this time. The primary 
elections being thus conducted on the principles of a general elec- 
tion, have been very generally satisfactory, and are a fair method 
for any candidate who desires fairness and justice. 

The Republican party, in the strenuous desire of some of its 
members for more offices and less labor, in order to dissatisfy the 
Democratic people and cause disruption, cry out, ''court house 
ring," "town clique." etc., which is and always has been the cry of 
the "wolf when there was no wolf." The Republican party of the 
county, while it has not at any time had full control of the county 
offices or official machinery in those cases where they have held 
office in the county, they have been honestly conducted, and there 
have been no grounds for charge of fraud, and the administration 
of the offices held by them has been creditable and of credit to 
the county. 

The Republican party did not. for many years after the forma- 
tion of the county, adopt nominations for office, usually supporting 
an Independent candidate sometimes agreed on before and by their 
leaders. The Independent candidate was usually a Republican or 
a disgruntled Democrat, preparing to "flop." Our experience is. 
that when you find a disgruntled Democrat running as an Inde- 
pendent candidate, he is on the highway into the camp of our 
friends, the enemy, and not until about the year 1888 did that party 
make nominations at all : and after they adopted the method of 
nominating, they first adopted the original plan of the Democrats, 
by selecting their candidates by mass conventions held at the court 
house. Afterwards they nominated by district meetings, and in 
1904 they nominated by district meetings called at a voting place 
in each district. 

The party was well united until after the election in 1900: and 
since the selection of postmaster in the city of Hinton. after the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 337 

Republican success in 1900, there has been more or less dissatis- 
faction in the party ranks. At the time the last postmaster, Hon. 
S. W. Willey, was appointed, L. P. Graham was a candidate, but 
Mr. Willey was successful. The canvass was active, and the ap- 
pointment of Mr. Willey left considerable dissatisfaction among the 
friends of Air. Graham. The Graham family was then and has 
always been prominent in the party, and had a large and respectable 
following throughout the entire county, and especially among that 
class of Republicans who had been responsible for maintaining a' 
party organization from its very foundation, and when there was 
hardly a corporal's guard of followers, and the prospect of office was 
hopeless, and the party was in a hopeless minority, and at these 
times when official preferments were not bright. 

So, when the time for the election of a member of Congress in 
the year 1902 came, from the Third West Virginia District, what 
was known as the "old-timers," or Graham faction, were not spe- 
cially active, but generally supported the party nominees, the 
Willey faction, or "Blue Pencil Brigade" being in charge of the 
party organization and responsible for the party management, they 
were permitted to take charge of the campaign. That faction 
known as the "Blue Pencil Brigade," assisted largely by Demo- 
cratic floppers and converts, had gone into the ranks of that 
organization since the prospects for office therein had brightened, 
and their failure in securing preferment in the Democratic party, 
that organization not being so situated as to provide jobs for all 
its deserving members, especially at one and the same time. While 
the Democratic candidate for Congress was not supported by the 
Graham faction, he received considerable Republican votes from 
individual Republican friends, and came out of the election for 
Congress in 1902 with a majority of over 600 votes in the county 
over his opponent, Hon. Joseph H. Gaines, who was elected, how- 
ever, from the district by a majority of about 2,500, the larger part, 
however, of the old-time factions standing loyally by the nominee, 
Mr. Gaines. 

When the campaign came on in 1904, a very strenuous fight 
arose between the two factions to secure the delegates and repre- 
sentatives to the various conventions, which included the State, 
Congressional, Senatorial and Judicial. The fight was made for the 
party organization, each faction attempting to secure a majority 
of the Executive Committee, which terminated in each faction 
securing an equal number, but by some means unknown to parties 
like the writer, on the outside, a member of the Graham faction on 



338 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the committee ''flopped to the organization wing, giving them 
a majority of the county committee. Mass-meetings were called, 
to be held at a voting place in each district, for the purpose of 
selecting delegates to a county mass-meeting to be held at the 
court house. These occurrences were in the year 1904, the mass- 
meeting at the court house being composed of delegates selected at 
the various district mass-meetings. These district meetings re- 
sulted in great strenuosity. A number of fights occurred and blood 
flowed, lawlessness ensuing, especially at Talcott, in Jumping 
Branch District, persons being knocked down and fist fights being 
one of the entertainments. 

L. P. Graham and John Willey came into collision at Talcott. 
The conventions in each district, except Forest Hill, split wide 
open, each faction appointing a separate set of delegates to the 
county convention to be held on the following Saturday. In Forest 
Hill District but one set of delegates was appointed, with Charles 
A. Baber, the leader, and an old-time, loyal Republican from the 
beginning; a very popular, conservative man of fine judgment, 
who controlled the situation entirely in that district, there being only 
eleven voters opposed to his leadership. 

When the convention met at the court house there were two 
sets of delegates, and they proceeded by selecting two chairmen 
and holding two conventions in the court room at the same time, 
each faction having its orators on the floor, and pandemonium 
reigned supreme, the Brigade refusing to give the old-timers a 
hearing or voice or representation in the meeting, or to have any- 
thing to do with the selection of delegates to the various conven- 
tions, the Forest Hill delegation co-operating and acting with the 
old-timers, or Graham faction. At one time it looked very much 
like there would be bloodshed. The Chairman of the "Blue Pencil 
Brigade" faction, as it was called, Hon. Upshur Higginbotham, 
appointed a sergeant-at-arms, and ordered the court house cleared 
of the opposing faction. John Willey being appointed as one of the 
sergeants-at-arms, started forthwith to obey commands, but, com- 
ing in close proximity to W. R. Neely, Jr., of Pipestem District, he 
evidently determined that caution was safer than valor, and retired 
to a window near by and took a seat, so there were no further 
demonstrations of physical force, but great noise from the vigorous 
orators throughout the room. 

Two sets of delegates were appointed to the convention, and 
when those delegates repaired to the various conventions, the Willey 
faction, or Blue Pencil Brigade organization, was recognized gener- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



339 



ally, and the other set of delegates turned down. At some of the 
conventions — the judicial, for one — the Graham delegates did not at- 
tend and made no effort for recognition. There were two Congres- 
sional Republican Conventions held, one of which was composed of 
those of the followers of the Hon. Wm. Seymour Edwards, of 
Kanawha, the Republican candidate for the nomination to Con- 
gress, and the other composed of the followers of the Hon. Joseph 
H. Gaines, a Republican candidate for Congress, to succeed him- 
self. The Gaines delegates were admitted to his conventions, 
and the old-timer delegates were admitted to the Edwards Con- 
vention, both conventions being held in Hinton on the same 
day. Both candidates were nominated, but before the election on 
November 8th, Mr. Edwards withdrew, and left Mr. Gaines a clear 
field, and he was elected to succeed himself in Congress over Henry 
B. Davenport, Jr., the Democratic nominee. 

Hon. S. W. Willey, the postmaster at Hinton ; John Willey and 
George B. Dunn, of Talcott ; L. G. Lowe, of Forest Hill; Messrs. 
Frank Lively, E. C. Eagle, Upshur Higginbotham, A. R. Heflin, 
Lucian Woolwine, Miletus Puckett, Chris. Hetzel and L. E. Dyke 
were the principal leaders of the organization, the "Blue Pencil 
Brigade," or Willey faction, as it was called; and Messrs. J. A. 
Graham, R. H. Maxwell, T. G. Mamm, C. H. Graham, John W. 
Graham, David G. Ballangee, W. R. Neely, M. D. Neely, C. A. 
Baber, R. R. Flanagan and James H. Hobbs were the principal lead- 
ers of the old-timers, or Graham faction. 

The mass-meeting at the court house was a history-making pro- 
ceeding. Upshur Higginbotham was made chairman of the "Blue 
Pencil Brigade" meeting, and George Dunn, secretary; W. N. 
Shanklin was chairman of the old-timer meeting, and Other Gra- 
ham, secretary. 

By the action of the organization people in refusing representa- 
tion to the old-timers and not permitting them to have a voice in the 
affairs of the party, great dissatisfaction arose, and in the coming 
election the entire responsibility of the campaign was thrown on the 
Willey faction, the Graham faction generally passively supporting 
the ticket, but assuming no responsibility for the campaign. The 
result showed a largely increased Democratic and abnormal vote for 
its candidates, many of the Graham sympathizers and supporters 
making no fight on the nominations, except in the race for the 
judgeship, the leaders of the old-timer faction openly voting for 
Jas. H. Miller for that position against the Hon. Frank Lively, his 
opponent and the Republican nominee. 



340 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



From these differences, which has divided it, factions have grown 
up in the Republican party, and future "Republican skirmish- 
ing in the Republican ranks may be yet expected. At the district 
primary meetings there was quite a division between the two 
factions, and we are unable to state which had the majority. At 
some places there is no doubt but what the Graham faction had 
the majority largely, while at others, the vote seemed to be about 
equal, and, possibly, in some instances, at the court house, for 
instance, where no contest was made, the organization wing 
had a majority. But the Graham faction was in no instance given 
a hearing or representation. Efforts were made to secure a com- 
promise and give each party a fair representation according to its 
strength, but the organization forces turned all advances down. 

The Democratic majority for President at this election (1904) 
in this county was 265 votes for Judge Parker and the same for 
the Hon. Henry G. Davis for Vice-President. Mr. John J. Corn- 
well, Democratic candidate for governor, received 400 majority 
over Mr. Dawson, the present incumbent. 

There are two Republican papers in the county, one the "Hin- 
ton Leader/' controlled by John Graham, of the old-timer faction, 
and the other, the "Summers Republican," edited by Upshur Hig- 
ginbotham, of the "Blue Pencil Brigade," or organization faction. 
The establishment of the "Summers Republican" grew out of these 
factional differences, and is the child of political strife. 

Both of the political parties of this county deserve credit up to 
this time of having provided good officers, and the absence of 
political or official scandals, for which so many counties and munic- 
ipalities have been afflicted in this and other States in modern 
times. No corruption can be truthfully charged against either in 
this county, and it is to be hoped that this good record may con- 
tinue to the end. There have been some charges of unfairness in 
elections, and, unfortunately, not always unfounded, and not based 
without some cause. These matters will be gone into more fully 
under the head of Elections. The principal trouble in the elections 
of this county and the cities therein has been the attempt to vote 
and the votes cast by illegal negro voters, not brought into the 
county for that special purpose, but being in the county from other 
counties or States engaged on public works, or loafing, as a large 
proportion of the colored population is disposed to do. They are 
surrounded by irresponsible politicians or by "smart Alex" negroes, 
who get pay for voting them ; and many of them being naturally 
ignorant, are made to believe they are entitled to vote, and are 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 341 

promised immunity from prosecution. They on some occasions 
force their ballots in by making the affidavit required by statute 
when their votes are challenged. An instance of this character 
occurred at the general election of 1902. There were a number of 
negro laborers, claimed to be at work on the C. & O. Railway 
at and near Hinton, all strange to the inhabitants, who came up to 
the polls of the First Ward to vote late in the evening, to the 
number of ten or twelve, in charge of a white man or two and a 
colored. In such instances the white is no better than the colored. 
They attempt to violate the law through ignorance, while the 
white man who leads them into the violation of the law does so 
with a full knowledge of the crime. These parties were challenged 
and their votes refused. A mandamus was secured from the judge 
of the circuit court, Judge McWhorter, who had been brought from 
Lewisburg on the morning of the election for the purpose ; and under 
the peremptory mandamus of the court the ballots went into the 
box. The offenders were immediately arrested and carried to jail, and 
the politicians provided bail. The negroes departed, and have never 
been seen in the county since. No forfeiture of the bail bonds was 
taken and no witnesses were summoned before the grand jury. The 
Republican party was the beneficiary of the frauds, if any were 
perpetrated, and at that time a Republican prosecuting attorney 
was in office, and the action of the court, whether legitimate or 
not, permitted the votes of these people to be cast and counted. 

S. F. McBride, the publisher of the "Hinton Headlight" and 
later the "Hinton Republican," secured a position in Washington, 
after he had left Hinton and gone to Charleston, but returned to 
Hinton at each election and voted at each successive election. The 
Democrats would have him arrested, and bail would be given, but 
he was never prosecuted. At the time above referred to he was 
refused a vote, but Judge McWhorter mandamused the election com- 
missioners, and compelled them to accept and count his ballot, 
after which the judge had the election officers brought before him 
for contempt, but the excitement of the election times dying out, 
a better spirit prevailed, and they were not proceeded against. 
These parties who were hauled up for contempt were Attorneys 
Reid Dunlop and "Squire" C. L. Parker. 

The only incorporated towns in this county are Talcott, which 
was incorporated by the circuit court about 1890, and which, after 
two or three years, was abandoned, and the corporation not main- 
tained ; Upper Hinton, or what is now included in the city of Avis, 
was incorporated by the circuit court, and remained a separate and 



342 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

distinct corporation from the city of Hinton until the consolidation 
of the two corporations by an act of ^he Legislature passed in 1897. 
This consolidation was dissolved by a subsequent act of the Legis- 
lature passed in 1890, so that at this time there are two incorpora- 
tions of this city, distinct municipal bodies — one, the city of Hin- 
ton, in which the court house is situated, and which includes the 
territory from the jail, running to the mountain west, and the 
other, the territory east, formerly Upper Hinton. 

In the city of Hinton for many years there were no party nomi- 
nations, Independent candidates making the races and the elections 
fought out regardless of political affiliations. The first nomination 
for a candidate for mayor was that of Mr. R. E. Noel, who was 
nominated at a mass-meeting called at the court house, at which 
there were probably twenty people present, and being an innovation 
and irregular, was resented by a large part of the people. Dr. S. 
P. Peck, a Republican of liberal and broad views, was induced to 
make the race against Mr. Noel, who was one of the best and most 
enterprising citizens of the town. Dr. Peck was elected by a slim 
- majority of only one vote. 

Nominations for city offices in that town did not become a fixed 
proceeding until later, about the year 1890, after which the city 
authorities have been Democratic, only one Republican mayor 
having been elected, which was Squire L. M. Dunn, who was elected 
in the year 1892. 

By maintaining the high ideals of official honor, the people have 
created a force and power, individual and collective, but strong, 
which tends to unify and add strength to a magnificent patriotism, 
as well as a glorious enthusiasm for the great republic, which was 
made powerful by the blood and arms of fellow countrymen, and 
which has continued the strong republicanism of ideas and ideals 
which perils have only tended to strengthen, and the ability of 
this land to maintain itself has been fully exhibited as against the 
unanimous antagonism of all the nations of monarchial Europe. 
Every hamlet, every small municipality, when all are united for 
good and free government, go to make up a great country, with all 
its glory, strength and power, and to maintain a well-balanced 
government, and a free land requires political parties and political 
antagonisms. There was a disposition, prompt and strong, after 
the fires of civil war had perished in all this region, among all 
patriots to cast off the Jacobins of abolition, as well as those of 
the Southern slaveholders, which had done so much to plunge the 
country into fratricidial strife a few years before, and for which 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 343 



the people were so little responsible. The new nation had a thorny 
road to travel for many years. Surmounting every obstacle, the 
nation grew great. Internal strife broke into dreadful war ; the 
life of the nation trembled in the balance, but it was saved and the 
nation born again. It arose with greater and stronger vigor than 
before. The men who strove against each other became friends; 
then began the scenes leading up to the present — the wonderful 
panorama of an industrial development which has no parallel in 
the history of any country, including the minimized territory within 
the prescribed limits of this mountain fastness, in the space of no 
less than forty years, in agricultural industries, commercial prog- 
ress, intellectual attainments, high ideals and its standards of civ- 
ilization. 



CHAPTER XX. 



ROADS. 

At the date of the formation of the county there were but few 
roads and highways, and those that did exist were unfinished and 
of poor grade. The law existing at that date provided for each 
district to be laid of! into road precincts and a surveyor appointed 
by the Board of Supervisors, afterwards by the county court, with 
the hands in the neighborhood of the respective precincts allotted 
thereto, who were compelled, between the ages of twenty-one and 
forty-five years, to work such number of days as appointed by the 
county authorities, not exceeding six. The roads were built and 
kept up by public labor, the county being sparsely settled, as will 
be noted by the number of votes cast in the early days. There 
were no highways except through the generally most populous 
precincts, and led to such commercial marts as then existed. The 
Red Sulphur and Kanawha Turnpike, a State road, had been con- 
structed before the war from the Red Sulphur by the mouth of 
Indian, down New River to Pack's Ferry ; thence across into Jump- 
ing Branch, at or near the mouth of Leatherwood, and out to Jump- 
ing Branch Village; thence by Shady Springs to Beckley, into Fay- 
etteville and Kanawha Falls, at which place it united with the 
James River and Kanawha Turnpike, leading to Charleston. This 
turnpike became a county road after the formation of West Vir- 
ginia. 

There was a road leading up New River by way of the mouth 
of Bluestone, crossing at Landcraft's Ferry; thence back down New 
River, up Bluestone to the foot of Tallory Mountain, up said moun- 
tain to Pipestem, by the G. L. Jordan and B. P. Shumate locations, 
on to Concord Church and Princeton. 

A "bridle path" from the mouth of Greenbrier down to Rich- 
mond's Falls, which was destroyed by the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- 
way Company, as detailed in another chapter. A road had been built 
up Lick Creek to Green Sulphur over Keeney's Knob on to Hayne's 
Ferry on Greenbrier River, and on through to Johnson's Cross 



CHARLES H. GRAHAM. 
Farmer. Teacher and Lumberman. Descendant of the Ancient Pio- 
neer. Colonel James Graham. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 345 

Roads, in Monroe County, one leading from Green Sulphur to the 
Big Meadows by way of Hutchinson's Mill, now Elton; one from 
Forest Hill to Rollinsburg, now Talcott, with a few cross roads, 
but those above named were practically all, and what roads were 
built at the formation of the county were dug out of the hills by 
the hard labor of the pioneers, some of the hands having to travel 
ten miles from their homes and then perform a day's labor or a 
certain task allotted to them by the surveyor. A man would go 
and return home from this labor and do a day's work or an allotted 
task. 

My father and others of his neighborhood along Lick Creek 
built the road from Green Sulphur Springs to New Richmond by 
day's labor, and sometimes would work all night to complete their 
task, in order to save the long walk of returning home at night and 
again returning to their work in the morning, a distance of eight 
miles. 

The road across Keeney's Knob to Clayton Post Office was 
built in the same way. The building of this road was equivalent 
almost to crossing the Alps. The road to the Big Meadows across 
Patterson's Mountain was also built in the same manner, but since 
the formation of the county, the farmers from all the region are 
required to work on the road being built. 

We frequently at this day hear violent complaints of the con- 
dition of our roads in the county, but when we consider the rough 
character of our county — its broken, rocky and mountainous sur- 
face, the poverty and hardships under which the roads have been 
made, working boys originally from sixteen years to fifty, and 
from six to twelve days out of the year, we can appreciate the 
hardships under which our highways have been made, and realize 
that the cause of complaint is not well taken. 

At the present time all the districts of the county build and 
keep up their public roads, or highways, known as county roads, 
by taxation, except Jumping Branch and Pipestem. One misfor- 
tune has been in the unfortunate grades made in locating many of 
the public highways by unscientific engineering in the early days. 
At this time there are roads and highways into almost every nook 
and neighborhood within the county's borders, and they are being 
extended and improved as the years go by. Each of the high 
mountains of the county is now crossed and penetrated by one or 
more county roads, with changes of the grades gradually progress- 
ing for their betterment each year. We doubt if there is a county 
in the State with a harder or more difficult territory over which to 



346 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



construct its public highways. An examination of the first records 
made by our county authorities after the organization of the county 
shows that the question of the public roads began to be a matter 
of public interest. They at once began having the locations viewed, 
roads established, changes made and hands assigned, and the 
records are full of orders authorizing and directing these advance- 
ments for the location and establishment of the new roads. One 
of the first changes recorded was to set the road back from New 
River on to the base of the hills from the mouth of Greenbrier to 
the mouth of Bluestone, the road formerly running up the river 
bank. Mr. C. B. Deeds, a resident of Jumping Branch District, 
and one of the pioneers of that section and most enterprising and 
hospitable of men, early began a campaign for a road up Beech 
Run, from Hinton's Ferry on New River to Jumping Branch. 
He labored long, earnestly and persistently, and finally secured its 
establishment and an appropriation from the court, Mr. Deeds con- 
tributing a large proportion of the costs from his own pocket, and 
he is well worthy of the title to that of "Father of the Beech Run 
Road," as Mr. W. G. Flanagan is entitled to be designated as the 
"Father of the road*' leading up Meadow Creek from New River 
to the Little Meadows. After years of persistent appeals, labor 
and sacrifices, he secured that thoroughfare. The old roads exist- 
ing at the formation of the county were narrow and bad grades, 
going up and down, and a great many changes have been made for 
the better, they being broadened and graded. 

An instance of changes for the better is in the road from Green 
Sulphur Springs to New River, and the road up Madam's Creek 
from its mouth, for the former of which Mr. Harrison Gwinn is 
entitled to credit for his enterprise, and for the latter Mr. John H. 
Dodd and C. E. Stevenson are entitled to credit, as are Senator 
AVm. Haynes and Joseph Nowlan for the road up Greenbrier River 
from the Haynes' Ferry to the mouth of Griffith's Creek. 

The late M. A. Withrow, of Green Sulphur Springs, and James 
H. Martin, Esq., each of whom occupied the position of road sur- 
veyor for years, and were enthusiastic road men, and deserve much 
credit for the improvements of roads in that district. The road 
down New River from Hinton was destroyed, as above stated, and 
never replaced, although a bridle path has been made by the county 
to take its place across The Chestnut Mountain by way of Brooks, 
but hardly safe for an equestrian riding single. The road across 
Taylor's Ridge from Talcott to Lick Creek, from Clayton to Al- 
derson, from Lowell to that town, from the mouth of Pipestem to 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 347 



the top of Tallory Mountain, from Lowell across Gwinn's Moun- 
tain towards Red Sulphur, from Indian's Mills to Forest Hill, from 
the mouth of Greenbrier to Wolf Creek, the Little Bluestone Road, 
the bridge across Indian Creek, near its mouth, and at Lick Creek ' 
at New Richmond, and across Slater's Fork of Lick Creek have all 
been made within recent years. 

A long-fought battle was waged for a new road from the mouth 
of Indian up New River by the places of the Harvey boys, but no 
success has been attained at this time. This road was especially 
fought for for a number of years by Messrs. J. E. Harvey, J. H. 
Harvey and W. L. Harvey, C. A. Baber making a successful fight 
against it, and who, about the year 1900, secured the establishment 
of a ferry across New River, about the mouth of Indian over to 
the Crump's Bottom. 

There was before the war a path over Keeney's Knob leading 
from Lick Creek to Alderson, known as the Hog Road, by which 
the hog-drivers from Kentucky took a near cut, went directly across 
the mountain, driving their hogs from Kentucky for the Eastern 
markets. They would drive them from the Kanawha over the 
Sewell Mountain to War Ridge ; over that ridge to the Little 
Meadows; thence up Lick Creek on over Keeney's Knob to Grif- 
fith's Creek; thence to Alderson's Ferry; thence up Greenbrier 
River and across the Allegheny Mountains to Jackson's River; 
thence down the same to Buchannon and the James River to the 
head of canal navigation. Evidences of this old road remain to 
this day, and I have passed over the same when younger than I 
am now on horseback, although it was nothing but a bridle track, 
but it was much nearer and more practical for that kind of travel 
than the wagon road built across by engineers. 

There was, some three years ago, an iron free bridge built 
across Lick Creek at New Richmond, for the building of which 
and the change of the road from the creek to the depot Mr. M. A. 
Withrow, now deceased, is entitled to much credit for his enter- 
prise. - 

In 1905, the Hinton Toll Bridge Company was incorporated 
and the bridge across New River at Hinton, from Temple Street 
to the mouth of Madam's Creek, was let to contract, which is at 
this time under construction, and will cost about $42,000.00, the 
contract price being $41,000.00. Unusual delays have occurred in 
the construction, the contractor, a man by the name of P. O. 
Shrake, having failed and his bondsmen having to undertake the 
completion of the work in order to save themselves, the bridge 



348 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

company being protected by ample bond executed by the con- 
tractor. Messrs. R. F. Dunlap, J. A. Fox and others are the prin- 
cipal promoters, the stock being held largely by the citizens of 
Hinton. These gentlemen deserve credit for their enterprise in 
pushing this matter, as it will be greatly to the benefit of the city 
generally. The bridge, however, when completed, will greatly 
depreciate the value of the two ferries at Hinton, one owned by 
Mr. Joseph Hinton in the town of Avis, and the Lower Hinton 
ferry by H. Ewart and Martin Nee. It is said they will cut the 
rates and still fight for existence. 

The other ferries now having existence in the county are the one 
across Greenbrier, at its mouth, owned by A. E. and C. L. Miller ; 
one at Ferrell's Landing, near Greenbrier Springs, owned by E. D. 
Ferrell, and one at Pence's Springs, owned by A. P. Pence ; Shank- 
lin's Ferry, the ferry at Crump's Bottom, owned by Buck Smith; 
Pack's Ferry at the mouth of Bluestone, owned by Joseph N. 
Haynes ; Patrick's Ferry, at the mouth of Greenbrier, owned by 
Miller Brothers and George W. Lilly, and Richmond's Ferry, at 
- the mouth of Laurel Creek, owned by Allen Richmond; also one 
at Meadow Creek across New River. 

The only ferries which are operated by means of wire cables 
are the two Hinton ferries, the one at the mouth of Greenbrier, 
the one at the mouth of Bluestone, of Mr. Haynes' and Mr. Pence's 
at Pence's Springs. There is also a ferry across New River at War- 
ford, which was owned and operated until recently by Mr. James 
W. Cox, a son of Wellington Cox, the first county assessor, and 
which is now owned by recent purchase by Dr. J. A. Fox. J. E. 
Harvey also has a ferry across New River above Crump's Bottom 
at his farm. 

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railway was completed through this 
county in 1872, which runs through the county a distance of about 
thirty-five miles from the point on Greenbrier River, and two miles 
west of Alderson down Greenbrier to New River; thence down 
New River to the Fayette line below Meadow Creek, passing 
through the Big Bend Tunnel, half a mile west of Talcott Station. 
This tunnel is built through the Big Bend Mountain, and is one and 
one-fourth miles in length, and the Little Bend Tunnel is a short 
distance west, only a few hundred feet in length. These are the 
only railroad tunnels in the county. The Big Bend Tunnel was 
completed about the 1st of January, 1872, was constructed by 
William R. Johnson, a Virginia contractor, at an immense cost, 
the amount of which we are unable to secure any information. In 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 349 

its construction a number of shafts were drilled from the top, from 
which forces of hands worked each way, coming together in 
accordance with the engineer's plans. These shafts still exist, and 
when trains pass through the tunnel, immense clouds of smoke 
arise therefrom. The tunnel was originally arched with wooden 
timbers, but, becoming decayed, were condemned by the county 
authorities (after the killing of several railroad employees), under 
the direction of Elbert Fowler, the then prosecuting attorney, and 
soon afterwards the arching of the tunnel began with brick, which 
required some ten years in its completion. It is now substantially 
arched with brick. This work was done without interfering with 
the transportation of the road, the work progressing and the trains 
running without interruption, except at times, temporarily, when a 
large amount of debris would be pulled down. The completion of 
this work terminated some ten years ago. As the frequency of 
trains passing through this tunnel increased the density of the 
smoke, and the fumes therefrom became unbearable and destruc- 
tive to human life, the employees would be overcome in passing 
through these dense fumes, and others came near doing so. John 
C. Wise, an excellent citizen of this city, who was a locomotive 
engineer, and in the year 19 — , his engine being stopped for some 
cause in this tunnel, he was overcome, and before assistance reached 
him, death ensued. Public sentiment being aroused, the railroad 
company, by reason thereof, finally undertook the work of putting 
in fans at the east portal, which were, after a year or two, placed 
in complete operation, by which means these dense and deathly 
fumes and smoke were forced out of the tunnel promptly, thus 
making it now a safe highway. 

Mr. M. Smith was the county surveyor for many years, and a 
large proportion of the changes of grades, re-locations and locations 
and new roads were made by him in his official capacity — not being 
a scientific engineer, but a most estimable gentleman. His grading 
was not done in the most scientific and modern manner, hence the 
defectiveness in the grades of many of our roads. 

There have been several accidents on the road from New Rich- 
mond to Green Sulphur. A few years ago John Thomas, a farmer 
from the Big Meadows, was driving his team up that road, accom- 
panied by Miss Sarah McNeer, when, in making one of the short 
turns around a steep precipice, his wagon overturned, and Mr. 
Thomas was instantly killed, his wagon broken up and his horses 
badly injured. 

In hauling for the construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio Rail- 



350 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



road, a four-horse team and wagon went over this high precipice 
near the Fall Branch. Part of the team was killed, the wagon 
going down into the creek. 

Many years ago, before the formation of the county, and before 
there was a public road from New Richmond up Lick Creek, a 
lady by the name of Cales was leading a horse up the bridle path 
about a half a mile above New Richmond at Fall Branch, where 
there was a very steep and high precipice. The horse slipped or 
lost his footing, went over the cliffs, and was instantly killed. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



NAMES. 

The derivations of names of various points, places, objects, etc., is 
a matter of more or less interest, and the manner of their adoption 
is gone and lost sight of before we begin to think of the incidents 
connected with their naming, and now all the mountains, streams, 
springs, valleys and places are named in days gone by, and practi- 
cally all of them have some original interest to the after dwellers 
of the country, but they soon become matters of tradition. Thus, 
"Sewell Mountain" in some of the histories, was named for Sewell, 
or Suel, the first settler, when he and Marlin first settled at the 
mouth of Knapp's Creek, at Marlin's Bottom in Pocahontas County. 
They resided as monarchs of the entire wilderness until they had 
personal differences about religion, when they parted, Sewell going 
into a large, hollow tree, later removing west on to the mountain, 
and near the creek which bears his name to this day, "Sewell Moun- 
tain" and "Sewell Creek," and at which place he was finally slain 
by the Indians, as did Marlin's Bottom take its name from Marlin, 
who settled there with Suel. 

Green Sulphur Springs has no history in its name, except to 
designate it from ..the other springs in this region. The names of 
places frequently follow the proprietor or occupant ; thus, Barger's 
Springs was at one time "Carden's," the owner ; then "Barger's," 
and now the "Greenbrier," a name given by the present company. 
Keatley's Spring, near Hinton, was so called after Henry Keatley, 
an aged citizen, who lived by it for a number of years. 

Pence's Spring was named for Andrew P. Pence, who ac- 
quired the property in the seventies, and exploited it, bringing it to 
the attention of the general public, and to his enterprise and energy 
is due the honor for its present fame. It was once known as Buf- 
falo Spring, as it was a noted lick for buffaloes and deer in the 
early days, as was also the Green Sulphur Spring, at which there 
was a fort. This fort was built by the Indians, and was a kind of 
stone breastwork built across the bottom in the meadow below 



352 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the spring. The outlines are distinctly visible at this day. Many 
arrow heads and curious shaped stones are still plowed up and 
found in numbers in this bottom. 

Slater's Creek, a branch of Lick Creek, in Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict, was named for a man by the name of Slater, the first settler 
thereon, and who has, with all his descendants, long since disap- 
peared from the earth. Slater is said to have been killed by the 
Indians. 

Patterson's Mountain, between Greenbrier and Summers Coun- 
ties, named after an old family of settlers, who located at its base 
and top ; the "Hump" Mountain, between Lick and Meadow Creeks, 
on account of its peculiar formation ; the Swell, between Lick and 
Laurel Creeks, likewise ; Chestnut Mountain, between Laurel Creek 
and New River and a continuation of Keeney's Knob and Elk 
Knob, by reason of the great amount of chestnut timber on it. 
Keeney's Knob or Mountain, a part of the Allegheny system, after 
Keeney, a first settler, who was killed by the Indians ; Stinson's 
Knob (properly Stevenson's), after the first settler in that region; 
Gale's Mountain, between Wolf Creek, Greenbrier and New River, 
sometimes called "Wolf Creek Mountain," after an old settler by 
the name of James Cales, who lived on its top ; White Oak Moun- 
tain, by reason of the great amount of white oak timber which 
grew on its sides; Tallery Mountain, by reason of the peculiarly 
slick soil when wet, makes it slippery like grease; Gwinn's Moun- 
tain, after Andrew Gwinn, who owned a magnificent plantation 
at its base and on its sides of some 2,000 acres ; Taylor's Ridge, 
from Hunghart's Creek to Keeney's Knob, after a man by the name 
of Taylor who first settled in its region. 

The other mountains in Green Sulphur District are Chestnut 
Mountain, between Laurel Creek and Lick Creek; the Hump Moun- 
tain, between Lick Creek and Meadow Creek, and the Swell Moun- 
tain. All are high, rough mountains, but are settled over with 
thrifty and enterprising farmers ; the War Ridge Mountain, prin- 
cipally in Fayette County, is on the west side of Meadow Creek. 
We are not prepared to state from what it takes its name, but 
there was evidently a trail across it for the warriors in the ancient 
Indian wars. The Hump Mountain is a peculiar shaped mountain, 
and from its shape took its name. The top is flat and has an area 
of several hundred acres of level land thereon. There are on top 
of this mountain three fine springs of pure crystal water, which 
never go dry. Near one of these springs is what is known as the 
"Stamping Ground." There were three large white oak trees 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 353 

standing close together, and the pioneer hunters bored holes in 
the trees and placed salt in the holes so that the cattle and horses 
could always be found without trouble, and deer could be found 
there at any day, as they would gather there for salt. There are 
three seams of coal in this mountain near its top ; one two feet, 
one four feet, and one eight feet, of fine quality. 

In Jumping Branch District the White Oak and Flat Top Moun- 
tains are the principal ones, in both of which there is New River 
coal. In the Pipestem District are the Bent Mountain and Tallery 
Mountain. In Talcott the Keeney's Knob extends, and the Green- 
brier River Hills; Shockley's Hills and Bent Mountain are also in 
Pipestem, as well as Davy's Knob. 

The principal streams of the county are New River, Greenbrier 
and Bluestone. New River has its source in North Carolina, and 
runs through the entire length of the county, some thirty-five miles 
from the Virginia line to Fayette County line, from south to east, 
and on which is situated the cities of Hinton and Avis at the mouth 
of Greenbrier River. New River is a continuation of the Great 
Kanawha, but is named New River from the mouth of Gauley to 
its source. It was first discovered by explorers in the upper valley, 
and was supposed to be a "new" or undiscovered stream, when in 
fact it was really a continuation of the Kanawha, and has its source 
in the mountains of North Carolina. A number of theories have 
been entertained as to how it received its name. One by Major 
Hotchkiss was that a man by the name of New had a ferry across 
it; but the generally accepted theory is that it was taken by its 
discovery to be a new and unexplored stream at the point first 
reached by its explorers, and that it was a new, and, therefore, 
unknown stream. 

The next stream in size is the Greenbrier, a most beautiful 
piece of pure water, celebrated throughout the land as a fine stream 
for fishermen and sportsmen, the stream now being well stocked 
with black bass, mud and blue catfish. Large numbers of persons 
from the towns and cities come singly and in parties to fish in this 
stream ; some camping along its margin, while others stop at 
hotels and farmhouses. The campers use large canvas tents, with 
some one to cook, thus enjoying a novel and pleasant outing. The 
fish are caught with hook and line, trout lines, by wading from the 
bank, and in boats and skiffs, using the patent minnows, living 
minnows, worms, bugs and crawfish for bait. The black bass is 
not a native of the stream, having been stocked twenty odd years 
ago by the State and Federal Government, the first supply having 



354 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



been placed therein by William A. Quarrier, then one of the fish 
commissioners of the State, about the year 1880. The first settle- 
ment at Hinton was by Isaac Ballangee about 1780 on the island 
now owned by C. H. Graham, by reason of the dangers from the 
Indian savages. The Ballangees are of French descent. 

We have information as to the naming of Big and Little Blue- 
stone Rivers, which is that the Big Bluestone flows in its upper 
course over clear bluestone rocks. The Greenbrier River was so 
named by the explorer, General Lewis, by reason of the great 
growth of green briers which he found growing on its banks in 
such masses that he had difficulty in penetrating into the region. 
New River is stated to have been of a late discovery. It is really 
the head waters of the Great Kanawha, but when discovered in the, 
Virginia territory was considered a new discovery and called New 
River, because it was supposed to be an entirely unknown stream 
and a new discovery, otherwise it should be Kanawha to its source. 
Pipestem Creek, because of its peculiar windings ; both the Lick 
Creeks, by reason of the great deer and buffalo licks thereon, and 
the place where the Green Sulphur Springs, and the other where 
the salt works were afterwards located; Mognet Branch near Hin- 
ton, from a man by the name of Mognet ; Powley's Creek, which 
empties into the Greenbrier near the west end of Big Bend Tunnel, 
after the first settler, of whom we have no information ; Meadow 
Creek, because the stream heads in and flows through a section of 
country called the "Little Meadows," because of the flat land 
mostly and great grass-producing country. 

Blue Lick, which flows into the Greenbrier at Greenbrier 
Springs, after a deer lick at its source, known as the "Blue Lick;" 
Indian Creek, because of the Indian highway up its meanders and 
their camping ground at its mouth ; Griffith's Creek, after the old 
settler by the name of Griffith, who when a boy was stolen by the 
Indians, as recited in these pages, and whose father was killed by 
them; Lane's Bottom, after General Lane, who owned the farm; 
Madam's Creek, opposite the court house, we have no history of; 
Beech Run, which flows into New River just above, by reason of 
the character of the timber preponderating on its banks ; Flat Rock, 
just below Hinton, by reason of its flat rock bottom : Brook's 
Branch, Brooks' Post Office and Brooks' Falls of New River, four 
miles west of Hinton, all took their name from the early settler 
who located there in pioneer days ; Richmond's Falls of New River, 
Richmond's Mills, now gone, and New Richmond Post Office, all 
took their name after the celebrated Richmond family who lo- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



355 



cated there, utilized the water power on the western shore to 
operate a large two-story flour mill, and who was shot to death 
during the late Civil War between the States. 

Jumping Branch, by reason of the numerous falls near its 
mouth and the habit of jumping teams over it before being bridged; 
Little Wolf Creek, because of the harbor for wolves which 
bred in its region, there being a larger stream in Monroe County, 
which also flows into the Greenbrier some three miles west of 
Alderson, called Big Wolf Creek; Bradshaw's Run, which empties 
into Indian Creek at Indian Mills, named after the first settler 
thereon by the name of Bradshaw ; Crump's Bottom, by the various 
owners; first, as Culbertson's Bottom, then as Reed's Bottom, 
Reed being an owner; then Crump's Bottom, after the father and 
son who succeeded each other, William, and then William B. 
Crump, and no doubt it will some day be known as "Harmon's 
Bottom" and "Shumate's Bottom," after the owners at this day, 
Harmon owning the upper end, and Shumate estate the lower end. 

True Post Office was named by the late Larkin McDowell 
Meador. He was seeking to secure a post office at the present lo- 
cation, and went to the post office department, presenting his 
petition and the facts, and at the end of his letter said, "Now this is 
true," and thereupon the department established his office and 
named it "True" ; Landcraft's Ferry, across New River, was named 
for Grandison C. Landcraft, an old settler and progressive citizen, 
who acquired the residence where Jos. N. Haynes now lives, and 
the old Pack Ferry, which was then a mile above the present ferry 
and a mile above the mouth of Bluestone. This ferry has had some 
history-making litigation between Jos. N. Haynes and later Thos. 
Meador, known as "Tommy Tight," in which Mr. Haynes was 
victorious and the ferry moved to its present location. Dust Lick 
Fork, a tributary of Little Bluestone, from a deer lick known as 
Dust Lick. 

Bacon's Mills is located at the Falls of Greenbrier below Tal- 
cott, on the old Jacob Fluke plantation. Jacob Fluke, about 
seventy years ago, in 1835, built a grist mill and carding machine, 
which was patronized for miles around, where the people had their 
wool made into "rolls," and then the women of the house spun 
into "yarn" on the old-fashioned spinning wheels, and then with 
the looms, reeds and shuttles wove into cloth jeans for the men 
and flannels for the women's wear, all of the wearing apparel being 
of home manufacture, and this continued up to the date of the 
building of the C. & O. Railway and the formation of the county, 



356 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

which were practically simultaneous. Fluke's Mill burned down, 
and not being able financially to rebuild, Robert Bacon, of Vir- 
ginia, joined him prior to 1861, and they built in co-partnership the 
famous mill known to this day as "Bacon's Mill." Mr. Bacon 
afterwards married Miss Nancy Fluke, who became the only heir 
to all of Jacob Fluke's property. 

The post office at Talcott was first known as Rollinsburg, 
named after Charles K. Rollyson, who owned all the lands around 
and has left as his descendant and our present citizen, C. S. Rolly- 
son, commonly known as "Shan," residing on a part of the old 
homestead on Big Bend Mountain. Rollinsburg was on the op- 
posite side of the Greenbrier River from Talcott, at which place 
resided George W. Chattin, an enterprising farmer, who owned the 
bottoms there and whose descendants still own the same. Among 
his children are Mrs. R. T. Ballangee, Mrs. Giles H. Ballangee and 
John and Oscar Chattin; and J. W. Jones & Bro., who were mer- 
chandizing under that firm until the building of the railway, when 
they moved across the river to Talcott, as did also the Rollinsburg 
post office, and the name of Rollinsburg became a thing of the past. 

Lowell was named after the two brothers, A. C. and Granville, 
who located there and engaged in the mercantile business and 
built a hotel in the early seventies. 

Talcott Post Office and town were named after Capt. Talcott, 
a civil engineer, who aided in the construction of the C. & O. Rail- 
road, and was the engineer in charge of the construction of the 
Big Bend Tunnel. It was here that Dr. Bray, the eminent English 
surgeon and engineer, resided at the date of his death, having been 
born and educated in England. He emigrated to this country, 
married a Miss Brown, of Mercer County, a sister of Mrs. J. M. 
Carden, and located at Talcott, where he died during the building 
of the Big Bend Tunnel. He was the father of A. B. C. Bray, the 
accomplished telegrapher, and now cashier of the First National 
Bank of Ronceverte. The widow still resides with her daughter, 
Mrs. Frank L. Cox, in Hinton, Mr. Cox being one of the most 
expert train dispatchers and railroad men in the service. Dr. Bray 
left a monument in the magnificent survey and plat of the old 
West land survey in Pipestem District and Mercer County. It is 
an authority, and has been used in many of the land title settle- 
ments, controversies and suits growing out of that immense tract 
of land, and is known among lawyers as Bray's survey. Its me- 
chanical appearance can not be excelled, and no price will buy it. 

Hinton took its name from the old family of that name, and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 357 



especially after Evan Hinton, who promoted the establishment of 
the county. The Hintons did not own or occupy any part of the 
present territory of the city of Hinton, that land being owned by 
the heirs of Isaac Ballangee, of which Mrs. M. N. Breen is one of 
the heirs. 

Avis was named after Mrs. Avis Hinton, wife of "Jack" Hinton, 
the father of Joseph, William, Silas and John, who lived on the 
lands included in the city of Avis at the founding of a town site 
on which Avis is now built. She was born in 1809, and died in 
1901, aged ninety-two years. She was a Miss Gwinn, sister of 
William, Enoch, Moses and Lewis, of Meadow Creek. 

Hallidon was the name of a post office established at the resi- 
dence of Wm. E. Miller on Lick Creek, the mail route being from 
Green Sulphur to Alderson, and carried twice a week, with Wm. 
E. Miller as postmaster. The route crossed Keeney's Knob to the 
foot on the opposite side, where a second office was established, 
called "Clayton," after the Cincinnati balloonist. Halidon was 
named after Halidon Hill in England, where the Battle of Halidon 
Hill was fought, and was named by Miss Mary B. Miller. After 
a few years this route was discontinued as impractical. 

Sandstone Depot, between the mouths of Lick and Laurel Creek, 
was originally New Richmond Depot, same as the post office and 
falls of the river; but when the extension of the railroad was made 
, a few years ago, from Huntington to Cincinnati, a station a few 
miles east of Cincinnati was named New Richmond, and the name 
of the old depot on New River changed to Sandstone, as there is 
at that place a sandstone quarry, at one time, operated and pro- 
ducing a very fine building stone, and the railway company and 
John A. Richmond, the owners of the surrounding land, being 
antagonistic to each other, by reason of Mr. Richmond's propensity 
for litigating with the company over damages and wrongs, they 
determined not to permit its depot named longer for him. The 
litigation between these two litigants became noted; the railroad 
track ran through and split open wide his bottoms, and frequently 
killed his stock, and at one time burned his barns, and in those days 
it required a suit to secure redress, and he seldom failed to "give it 
the law without the benefit of clergy." The company having built 
its depot across the line at that place, and not being disposed to 
adjust the matter, he promptly brought an action in ejectment. 
Thereupon, it bought his land and paid for it. 

Meadow Creek station was built when the railroad was completed. 
William Gwinn, one of the oldest settlers, owned the land, and 



358 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

upon his agreement to give the right of way to the company, it 
agreed to establish a station at that point. He conveyed the right 
of way, and the company built the depot, established its station, 
but locked it up, and for some time provided neither a station nor 
agent, nor did it stop its trains, all of which was, however, later 
adjusted, and a station has been operated at that place for a number 
of years. This illutrates, however, how sometimes injudicious acts 
of injudicious agents bring honorable corporate enterprises into 
dispute. 

Ballangee Post Office, on the Red Sulphur road from Talcott, 
was secured through the efforts of Squire R. T. Ballangee, and 
named for him, that being one of the family names of one of the 
oldest and most respectable pioneer families in this region. 

Forest Hill was for many years designated as the "Farms," it 
being a desirable and good farming territory. At one time the 
raising and manufacturing of tobacco in that neighborhood was a 
profitable industry, long since abandoned. A tobacco factory was 
constructed and operated at that place for many years, the then 
modern presses and machinery being acquired and utilized for the 
manufacture of the chewing tobacco and smoking tobacco, but not 
of cigars, John and William Roberts, Joseph Ellis and James Mann 
and J. Cary Woodson being the owners from time to time, but the 
raising of the weed becoming less profitable, the enterprise was 
finally abandoned, and the property permitted to fall into decay. 
The old tobacco factory at that place is now owned by John Garten, 
who purchased it from the late James Mann, of Alderson. 

Leatherwood Bottom, at the mouth of Leatherwood Branch, on 
New River, where James W. Pack now lives, was so named be- 
cause of the great growth of leatherwood brush there. 

Kesler Springs is named for the discoverer, Bunyan L. Kesler. 

A new post office was established in July, 1880, on Madam's 
Creek, at the residence of William Hinton, with Mr. Hinton as 
postmaster, but after a short while it was abandoned. It was near 
the interesting old landmark of Charlton's overshot water grist 
mill at the forks of Madam's Creek. 

There are interesting traditions in regard to the discovery and 
naming of New River, the principal river of this section of West 
Virginia. It is claimed by Major Hotchkiss that it was named by 
a man by the name of New, who had a ferry somewhere in the 
upper territory. It is claimed by others that it was, when dis- 
covered, a new river, not shown by any maps, and for that reason 
took the name of New River from its source to its mouth. By others 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 359 



it is claimed that the entire river was known as the Kanawha from 
its source to its mouth. It was known as Wood's River without 
any question for some time after its discovery, and is so shown 
on some of the old maps. The Kanawha River was not named, 
however, until 1770. In the Indian tongue it is the "River of the 
Woods," but it had been discovered at the other end and known as 
New River and named after Col. Woods as Woods River many 
years before the Kanawha or River of the Woods was ever dis- 
covered. 

On some of the old maps New River is shown as New River, or 
Woods River, from its source to its mouth at Point Pleasant, and on 
others it is the Kanawha from its mouth to its source ; later, it was 
called New or Woods River from its source to the mouth of Green- 
brier, and Kanawha thence to its mouth ; still later, and at the pres- 
ent, it is Kanawha from its mouth to the mouth of Gauley, and New 
River from that point up to its source, the name of Woods River 
having become obsolete. To show the claims of French dominion 
over this territory at one time, we mention the fact that in 1846, 
a resident of Point Pleasant, a young man by the name of Be'all, 
unearthed a lead plate at Point Pleasant, just 100 years after the 
French had printed it, the French having planted it at the foot of 
a tree, claiming dominion over all of the region west of the Alle- 
gheny Mountains. The duplicate copy of this original plate and 
inscription is preserved among the French national archives. The 
found plate has been lost by the owner being cheated out of it. 

The Guyandotte River was named for a tribe of Indians, as the 
Delawares called it Se-co-nee — Narrow Bottom River. The Tug 
River was named during the Andrew Lewis expedition to the Big 
Sandy in 1756, because his men became so straitened for food they 
ate the thugs from cow hides. 

The Ohio has had all kinds of names. In 1607 it was called 
Dono. In 1708 a Dutch map calls it Cubach. A map of 1710 calls 
-it O-O. In 1711 it is called Ochio. In 1719 it is called Sabongungo. 
The Delawares called it Kittono-cepe. The Wyandottes called it 
Oheezuh, the grand or beautiful. In D. Thoyer's History of Eng- 
land, 1744, it is called Hohio, and is made to empty into the AVabash. 
In some of the early Pennsylvania treaties with the Iroquois they 
got to spelling it Oheeo ; in 1744 it went by the name of Ohio, or 
Hohio. In 1749 the French called it O-Yo, or Ohio, not giving it 
a new name, but rendering it into French designations, most of 
which were equivalent to beautiful river. 

The Greenbrier was originally spelled Greenbriar. The Dela- 



360 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



wares called it O-ne-pa-ke-cepe, and the Miamis called it We-o-to- 
we-cepe-we. Cepe-we in Indian means river. Gauley River is 
supposed to have been taken from the French Gaul, ey being 
added. The Indian name was Chin-que-ta-na-cepe-we. 

Coal River was on the early maps spelled Cole, and was named 
in 1756 by Samuel Cole, who, with some others, on returning from 
the Lewis Big Sandy expedition, among whom was Andrew Lewis, 
got over onto and followed up this river and cut their names on 
a beech tree near the junction of the Marsh and Clear Forks, which 
remained legible there until in recent years, when it was cut down 
by some vandal in clearing the ground. Since the discovery of 
minerals and coal along this river in quantities, the name is spelled 
Coal. 

John's Knob, in Jumping Branch District, took its name by 
reason of the tragic death of John Acord thereon by freezing to 
death many years ago. He was a stranger passing through the 
country during a cold snap, and was found at the foot of a chestnut 
tree, having given out in the storm and sunk down, to rise no more. 
This occurred in the early part of the eighteenth century. 

Panther Knob in Jumping Branch District was named by a man 
killing a large panther thereon. 

Shockley Flill in Pipestem took its name from the fact that a 
man by the name of Shockley was killed by the Indians in the early 
settlement of the country. 

Barker's Ridge, in Wyoming County, was named for a great 
uncle of M. C. Barker, of this county. He was killed by the Indians 
on this ridge in the early days on that mountain. 

Tom's Run, in Pipestem District, was so named by reason of a 
man by the name of Thomas being drowned in its waters years ago. 
It is a small stream flowing into New River at the lower end of 
Crump's Bottom. 

Bear Wallow Mountain, in Jumping Branch District, was named 
from a "wallow" thereon. "Bar Wallow" Bob Lilley, got his nick- 
name, from living on one of these mountains. 

Surveyor Branch empties into Bluestone, was named from the 
fact that early surveyors of the county sheltered under the cliffs. 

Jumping Branch is a stream running by Jumping Branch Post 
Office and village on its way to Bluestone. In the days of the 
early settlement there was no bridge across it, and the traveler made 
his crossing by jumping his horse from one bank to another. 

The first ferry established in the county was Pack's Ferry 
across New River by the Packs, opposite the old Landcraft resi- 




FIRST NATIONAL BANK OF HINTON, 
Corner Third Avenue and Temple Street. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 



361 



dence. It remained there until ten years ago, when, by an order 
of the county court, it was removed down the river near the mouth 
of Big Bluestone by Mr. J. N. Haynes. Out of this removal grew 
a celebrated lawsuit between him and Tommy Meador, known as 
"Tommy Tight," who was a large landowner around where the ferry- 
was removed. The removal was by the agreement of Mr. Meador, and 
one landing w r as on his land. This was opposed by Mr. Haynes, 
and the result was a suit in the chancery court of Meador vs. 
Haynes. Haynes won in the circuit court, and Meador undertook 
to appeal to the Supreme Court of Appeals, but it refused the 
appeal, and thus the title to the w r hole ferry passed to Mr. Haynes, 
who has now erected a wire cable to aid in operating his boats. 

War Ford, a place of fording New River at the lower end of 
Crump's Bottom, was used in war times. The ford is rough and 
deep and is unused, but in the early days, and when no boats were 
on the river, the pioneers in war times could cross back and forth. 
This was also a crossing place for the Indians. It is located at the 
lower end of Crump's Bottom. 

Christian Peters built the first State road from Peterstown in 
Monroe County down New River by mouth of Indian Creek, cross- 
ing at the Baptist Church, and by Jumping Branch to Beckley. 
Peterstown and Peters' Mountain are supposed to have been named 
after him by others and according to the history of Peter Wright. 

Robert Lilly, the founder of the great generations of Lillys in 
the counties of Summers, Raleigh and Mercer, lived to be 114 years 
old, and his wife, who was a Moody, lived to be 111 years. On his 
grave has grown a w r hite pine tree three feet in diameter at the 
stump, which was planted there by his granddaughter, the mother 
of (Curly) Joe Lilly, a justice of the peace and commissioner of 
the county court, who has died since this work began. Robert 
Lilly is buried at the mouth of Little Bluestone. This white pine 
is the tallest monument in the county to the oldest couple that ever 
lived in it, and the graveyard where Robert Lilly is buried is the 
oldest in the county. It was begun by the burial of a child therein 
from a train of emigrants passing through the country, and its coffin 
was of chestnut oak bark. Its name is lost to history. Robert Lilly 
first settled on Bluestone on the farm on which (Curly) Joe Lilly 
resided at the date of his death in 1906. 

The Falls of New River are known as Richmond's Falls, after 
Wm. Richmond, and whose son, Samuel, first settled on the Raleigh 
side and built a log water mill for grinding corn and wheat, utilizing 
the water power from the falls. He was killed during the Civil 



362. HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

War, being shot through the liver in his canoe on the opposite side 
of the river. After the war, about 1872, the Raleigh side of the 
falls was sold with sixty acres of land, including the water power, 
to W. R. Taylor, of Philadelphia, for $15,000 in gold, the proceeds 
going to the widow and Allen and "Tuck" Richmond, two sons. 
Ex-Governor Samuel Price, of Lewisburg, received a fee of $500 
for passing on the title, which was considered a great fee in those 
times for the service rendered. The other, or Summers side, is 
owned by J. Motley Morehead and associates, who purchased, con- 
templating the establishment of a great electric plant there, but 
the site was abandoned and the plant installed at the Falls of the 
Great Kanawha, by reason of the railroad company being arbitrary 
about rates. The mineral used in operating this plant is brought 
from Asia Minor. At these falls is a fine fishing place. The per- 
pendicular fall is fifteen feet. 

Brooks' Falls, at the mouth of Brooks' Creek, was named after 
the first settler, Brooks. The Summers side is owned by Charles 
R. Fox, and the Raleigh side by the heirs of Avis Hinton. The 
fall is from twelve to fifteen feet and is excellent water power. 

Bull Falls, at the west end of Crump's Bottom, is also good 
water power, and has recently been purchased by Dr. J. A. Fox, 
of Hinton, to be utilized at some future day in the operation of a 
power plant. There is also further up considerable falls at Shank- 
lin's Ferry. There is also fine power at other places along New 
River. 

Bull Falls took its name from the fact that a bull was washed 
over the rapids and came out alive lower down the river. There is 
a ford a short distance which was used during the war, and is known 
as "Warford," the name of the post office near there. These names 
were by reason of the shallow places in the river having been uti- 
lized as a ford in war times and by the Indians in their incursions. 

Meadow Creek, which flows into New River twelve miles west 
of Hinton, heads in the "Little Meadows" country, and takes its 
name therefrom. 

Lick Creek, both the one in the lower end of the county in Green 
Sulphur District, as well as the one in the extreme upper end of 
Pipestem District, are named after the great buffalo, licks, one at 
Green Sulphur and one at Salt Works, besides many early deer 
licks in the hollows and mountain sides. Boring for salt on each 
creek resulted in a find. One, the Green Sulphur Springs, and the 
other, salt water. 

As all buffaloes disappeared, like the Indians, with the advance- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



363 



ment of civilization, the deer were plentiful, and middle-aged men 
can yet remember watching the deer licks at night behind blinds 
and killing them, but they, too, are now a thing of the past. 

The first name given the great Kanawha River from its mouth 
by the whites was by a French engineering party commanded by 
Captain De Celeron, and it was on the 18th day of August, 1749, 
that he planted the engraved leaden plate at the mouth of the 
river, by which he gave it the name of "Chi-no-da-che-tha," and 
by which action of these French explorers they claimed all of the 
territory drained by its waters from its mouth to its source, which 
included all of the Trans-Allegheny region, and on to North Caro- 
lina, in which State the river, under the name now of New River, 
gets its source. The leaden plate referred to was found just 100 
years afterwards by a little boy, a nephew of John Beale, residing 
in Mason County. This plate was carried by James M. Laidley, 
who was a member of the Legislature of Virginia, to Richmond, 
and submitted to the Virginia Historical Society, where a copy 
was made and the original returned to Mr. Beale, with the result 
above stated. 

The name "Kanawha"' was given to the river between 1760 and 
1770, and when this name was given it, it already had a name, as 
herein stated. Kanawha probably took its name from the Conoys, 
a tribe of Indians, as there is great variety in the spelling of the 
name. Wyman's map of the British Empire in 1770 calls it the 
Great Conoway, or Wood River. Kanawha County was formed 
by an act of the Legislature of Virginia in 1789, and therein it 
was spelled "Kenhawa." Daniel Boone spelled it in his survey 
in 1791, "Conhawway." If this river now had its original and 
proper name, it -would be. "Woods River" from its mouth to its 
source, or "New River" from its mouth to its source' ' 

The Wolf Creeks, as there are several of that name in this 
region of the country, there being Big Wolf Creek in Monroe, 
emptying into the Greenbrier below Alderson; Little Wolf Creek, 
emptying into the Greenbrier between Talcott and Wiggins, as 
well as Wolf Creek, which empties into New "River in Giles County, 
were named from the many wolves found, trapped and destroyed on 
these creeks. 

Elk River was originally called by the Indians the "River of 
the Fat Elk;" by the Delawares, the "Walnut River." Pocatelico 
was known by the Indians as the "rjver of the Fat Doe." 



CHAPTER XXII. 



BIOGRAPHICAL. 

I shall, under this head, give some of the oldest family history 
in a general way. I am unable to give as full and detailed stories 
of the founding and building up of these families as should be 
done, by reason of being unable to ascertain the histories thereof 
sufficiently to give complete accounts. Unfortunately, they have 
been allowed to lapse into oblivion, and the larger part of what we 
do obtain is traditional, but is, however, entirely reliable. 

We shall begin with the Graham family, that being a family of 
which we are enabled to give possibly a fuller history than of any 
other family in the county, by reason of the very commendable 
diligence of Mr. David Graham, the oldest member of that historic 
family now living, who has, with great diligence and (abor, at his 
own expense, gone to the trouble of tracing the history of the 
family as far as possible at this late day, from the obscurities into 
which old family histories always fall, unless preserved by some 
members as the generations pass. 

Mr. David Graham, who is now eighty-seven years old, when in 
his 79th year, prepared, as stated, a history of the Graham family, 
a copy of which I have in my possession, and I am under obliga- 
tions to him for his courtesy extended to me in the preparation of 
this narrative for much of the information secured in regard to this 
family and other incidents of tradition. 

GRAHAMS. 

I shall not go back into the ancient times before the settlement 
of this family in this country. The family is of Scotch-Irish descent, 
and emigrated to this country from the counties of Donegal and 
Londonderry, North Ireland, having formerly located there from 
Scotland to escape religious. persecution, which escape was of short 
duration, and they crossed the ocean to America. 

The name of Graham, years ago, like the name of many other 



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3 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 365 



of the old settlers, was sometimes spelled, for short, Grame, and 
sometimes Grimes, but there is no question about the correct name 
being Graham. Names in the earlier days were seldom seen in 
print, and but very seldom in writing, but were handed down orally, 
from one to another, thus giving ample opportunity for mispronun- 
ciation, and, as Mr. Graham says in his work, "Many names can 
be recalled, which, in our youth were pronounced differently from 
what they are now, and as an illustration, Stevenson was called 
Stinson." Stinson's Knob, the highest point of Keeney's Mountain, 
is called Stinson's Knob to this day, the correct name being Steven- 
son. The name of Withrow, an old name of the Greenbrier set- 
tlers, was called Withero ; Stodgill was called Sturgeon, and so on. 

The Graham name in all English history and in the history of 
this county, as well as in legal writings pertaining to the family 
from the earliest settlements in America down to the present time, 
is spelled as we now have it — Graham. The Graham family, 
before its emigration across the sea, was a very large and influ- 
ential one, and its official head was James Graham. The first 
emigration of the Grahams to this country of which there is an 
account was from about 1720 to 1730; the exact date is not known. 

Michael Graham settled in Lancaster County, Pa., he being a 
direct descendant of the Earl of Montrose, who was beheaded by 
reason of his loyalty to the king. The descendants of Michael 
Graham afterwards settled in the V alley of Virginia. About the 
same period that Michael Graham came to this country other mem- 
bers of the family came, among whom were John Graham, the great 
grandfather of David Graham, the author of the "History of the 
Graham Family," who also settled in Pennsylvania from Ireland, 
direct Scotch-Irish, and later removed to the Great Calf Pasture 
River, then in Augusta County, Va. Scotch-Irish does not mean a 
commingling of Scotch and Irish blood, but applies to those Scotch 
emigrants who first came to Ireland and then to America. Mr. 
David Graham fixes this date from 1740 to 1745. 

John Graham, the senior, in this country, had a family of four 
sons and five daughters. His oldest son's name was Lanty (Lan- 
celot) ; the other three sons were John, James and Robert. His 
will was probated in Augusta County, Virginia, on the 19th day 
of November, 1771. About the year 1770, James Graham, the son 
of said John Graham, moved to Greenbrier County, and settled in 
what is now this Summers County, just across the river opposite 
where the village of Lowell now stands on the Chesapeake & Ohio 
Railroad. The house in which he lived is the same, together with 



366 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the farm now owned and occupied by Bunyon L. Kesler, which 
is spoken of and described in another part of this book. It is 
immediately at Graham's Ferry on the Greenbrier River at Lowell. 

About the same time that Graham settled on the Greenbrier, 
Samuel Gwinn, and men by the name of Vanbibber, Scee, and Conrad 
Keller settled in the same region. Indian incursions were still 
made into this region after these settlements, but not frequently. 

James Graham was a prominent citizen in the affairs of this 
region; was created a colonel of militia under the laws then exist- 
ing; assisted in the defense of Fort Donally when attacked by the 
Indians in Greenbrier County, and his name is largely connected 
with public affairs during his long life. The Gwinns and Grahams, 
we have no doubt, were all neighbors in the foreign country; 
emigrated across the ocean together, and sought homes in the 
same neighborhood when they advanced into the wilderness west 
of the Alleghenies, each inter-marrying into the other family. John 
was the oldest son of Joseph Graham, and lived nearly all of his 
life at the foot of Keeney's Knob on the Greenbrier side, near 
- Clayton Post Office, dying at the advanced age of eighty-four years, 
he having never married until he was sixty odd years of age, when 
he married a Miss Alary Crews, who survived him, and died about 
1902, leaving no children. He was a man of considerable property, 
both real and personal. He devised all of his property to his wife, 
making provision for two boys, William and James Ayres, whom 
he had taken and raised from infancy. John Graham was a man 
of extraordinary common sense, but without any education except 
what he had acquired by his own efforts. He was a master mathe- 
matician, and early took to the avocation of surveying and engi- 
neering. He was one of the finest land surveyors in all the 
country, and was noted for having with his own hands constructed 
entirely and completely the first surveyor's compass which he used 
in his work for many years and which was entirely correct. He 
was surveyor of Monroe County and assistant surveyor in Sum- 
mers, and occupied other positions of trust. He was considered 
a man of honor in his business affairs, leaving an estate valued at 
$20,000.00, which was a large fortune in those days. He wrote his 
own will, making a provision in it for the Methodist and Baptist 
churches, being a member of the former denomination. After his 
death his wife occupied and controlled the property. 

She undertook to follow her husband, and wrote her own will, 
disposing of the property which she had acquired from her hus- 
band, giving it to her two nephews by marriage, Charles H. Gra- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 367 



ham and David Graham Ballangee. The two boys which she and 
her husband had raised from infancy undertook, after her death, 
being unmindful of the moral and other obligations, as well as the 
gratitude due from them, to substitute another will in the place of 
the one which was determined to be the last and only will. This 
was done by William Ayres, and a legal fight resulted before the 
court in determining which was her last will and testament. After 
some three days' trial, the court properly decided that the will 
which had been written by herself in her own handwriting to be 
the true will. The one which was undertaken to be substituted 
was found under an old clock on the mantel some time after her 
death, and was an attempt to imitate her handwriting, and had 
evidently been slipped under the clock on the day of the sale of 
her personal estate. 

A few years after the death of her husband, John Graham, she 
inter-married with Elijah Meadows, who still lives in the Green 
Sulphur neighborhood. 

His brother, James Graham, also remained a bachelor for many 
years, having, toward the end of his life, married Miss Rebecca 
Vass. He died several years ago, leaving one child, and his widow 
surviving him, married W. W. Walton, and they still reside at 
Clayton. 

David Graham still survives, and is now eighty-seven years of 
age. He married a Miss Alderson, a descendant of John Alder- 
son. He now makes his home with his children, and is a man of 
considerable property and of fine intelligence. It is very interest- 
ing to converse with him of - matters and affairs of long, ago. He 
resided and reared his family at Clayton Post Office, near the foot 
of Keeney's Knob. His sons are James Allen Graham, L. P. 
Graham, Charles H. Graham, John Wv Graham and Joseph Ulysses 
Graham, the latter residing at Charleston, West Virginia, while 
the others each make their homes in this county. 

James A. Graham, son of David Graham, resides in Hinton, 
and is one of the leading citizens of this day in affairs of this 
county, being engaged in the mercantile business at New Rich- 
mond. His son, R. Hunter Graham, has occupied for a number of 
years an important position in the Revenue Department of the 
general government at Washington, D. C, and has recently re- 
signed, and is undertaking the practice of law at Hinton, West 
Virginia, with bright prospects for his success. 

L. P. Graham is the organizer and cashier of the Citizens Bank 
of Hinton, founded in November, 1905. He has been a candidate 



368 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



for superintendent of schools, sheriff and mayor of Hinton on the 
Republican ticket. James A. Graham held the important position 
of commissioner of the county court for six years, having been 
elected on the Republican ticket in 1894 by a majority of 300, 
although the county was largely Democratic. He was also elected 
to the office of justice of the peace for Green Sulphur District, 
which position he held for four years. He is a man of fine sense 
and judgment, and the only Republican ever elected in the county 
to the county court. 

Charles H. Graham, now engaged in the lumber business and 
farming, still retains the ownership of the old David Graham home- 
stead at Clayton. He is a man of fine sense and generous impulses. 
He is, possibly, the best educated Graham of his name; was in 
his younger days a public schoolteacher for a number of years; 
justice of the peace of Talcott District at the election held in the 
year 1884, which position he occupied for four years. He was a can- 
didate for sheriff on the ticket with S. W. Willey later/ and has been 
notary public for many years. He is a good business man of fine 
attainments, now engaged in the lumber business and farming. 

The Grahams, in politics before the war, were Democrats, and 
were Union men during the Rebellion, not believing in the secession 
of the States or the dismemberment of the government. They have 
done more to create and maintain a Republican party organization 
in Summers County than any other family of people therein, even 
when the party was in a hopeless minority, and when there was no 
prospect of office, either Federal, State, county or municipal, and 
are noted for their political acumen and steadfastness to Republican 
party principles. 

In 1904, while they were accused of party disloyalty in that cam- 
paign, that disloyalty, if it can be called such, and to which we do 
not agree, extended to the support, openly and through the' press, 
of the Democratic candidate for the position of judge of the circuit 
court, they claiming as grounds therefor that his opponent was 
not loyal to the Republican party or its principles, but was a "flop- 
per" to that organization for the purpose of disruption and for office, 
and not in good faith. 

John Graham was the ancestor in this country. His children 
were: Lancelot (Lanty), John, James and Robert, Elizabeth, Ann, 
Rebecca and Florence. 

Joseph Graham, the settler at Clayton Post Office, married his 
cousin, Rebecca Graham, a daughter of James Graham, in 1803. 
Joseph was a son of David, Sr., of Bath County, Virginia. David 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 369 

Graham, Sr., and James Graham, Sr., who settled at Lowell (Gra- 
ham's Ferry), were brothers, and another of their brothers settled 
at Fort Chiswell, in Wythe County, Virginia. After the marriage 
of Joseph and Rebecca, they lived for a short time in Bath County, 
Virginia, then, after the year 1804, they came to the Lowell settle- 
ment, and lived some time on an island on the present farm of Hon. 
M. M. Warren and T. J. Riffe. Their house was near where said 
Riffe now lives, and in 1813 they moved to the Graham farm at the 
foot of Keeney's Knob, where Clayton Post Office is now situate. 
On the spot where Joseph Graham built his house was \ hunter's 
cabin, previously built by a man by the name of Stevenson (Stin- 
son). The cabin had probably not been occupied for years, as the 
survey for the land was made twenty-seven years before and pat- 
ented in the name of- James Graham, Sr, (Colonel), and the calls 
included this cabin- 
Joseph and Rebecca Graham raised the following children: 
Florence, born January 13, 1805; Lanty (Lancelot), born December 
8, 1806; John, born February 23, 1807; Jane, born April 6, 181—; 
James, born March 31, 1813; Elizabeth, born July 19, 1815; Ann, 
born October 16, 1818; David, born January 1, 1821; and Rebecca, 
born December 13, 1823. 

Florence, the oldest daughter of Joseph Graham, married John 
Nowlan, a native of Carrick, Kilkenny, Ireland, in 1835, and settled 
two miles from her father, where they lived until his death in 1875. 
They raised four children. Rebecca, the only daughter, married 
George W. Hedrick, a son of George W. Lledrick, a brother of 
Moses Hedrick. She died in 1863, and her descendants still live on 
the land, one of the daughters having married a worthless fellow 
by the name of W. D. Sherwood. Patrick, the other child, died in 
1884, aged twenty-three. 

Joseph, the oldest son of John and Florence Nowlan, married 
* Miss Mary Keeney, of Kanawha County, in 1865, and now lives on 
a farm near Pence Springs on Greenbrier River, once owned by his 
uncle, Samuel Graham. He has been a prominent farmer in the 
county. His son, John C, has been a justice ; another son is an 
attorney and telegraph operator; Elmer, now living at Alderson; 
Rebecca, Florence, who married Rev. C. T. Kintner; Stars, J., is a 
merchant, and Wm. C, lately died at Talcott, having married a 
Miss Huston, a daughter of the veteran station agent, E. P. Huston. 
He was a practicing physician. The other children, Lawrence, 
George, Anna and Homer, live with their father. K. P. Nolan, is 



370 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



an operator and station agent on the C. & O. Railway; John died 
unmarried. 

Patrick, the third son of John Nowlan, was drowned at Hayne's 
Ferry on January 8, 1877, at the exact place where his great uncle, 
Samuel Graham, was drowned sixty years before. 

Florence Nowlan died January 21, 1869, and John Nowlan, the 
original ancestor, died November 4, 1876, having been born January 
24, 1793. 

Joseph Nowlan is one of the prominent Republicans of the 
county; was the nominee for sheriff, and also the nominee of his 
party for commissioner of the county court of the county. 

The land on which he lives was purchased from the heirs of 
James Madison Haynes. At one time it belonged to Samuel Gra- 
ham, and passed to the Haynes ancestor. Mr. Nowlan has erected 
on the farm a good brick residence. Since writing the above he 
has sold this plantation to a Mr. Tolly, of Raleigh County, for 
$8,000.00. He married the only daughter of Thomas Meadows of 
that county, a very wealthy farmer. The lands of Hon. Wm. 
. Haynes and the Tolley farm were at one time owned by Samuel 
Graham ; after he was drowned accidentally at Haynes' Ferry, it 
passed into the ownership of James Madison Haynes, and consisted 
of some 400 acres. 

Lanty Graham, the oldest son of Joseph and Rebecca Graham, 
married Sabina Ellis, daughter of James Ellis, in 1833, and settled 
on Greenbrier River, on what is now Rifle's Bottoms, owned by 
M. M. Warren, Thos. J. Rifle and Mrs. Jennie Boggess. In 1836 
he settled at the foot of Keeney's Knob on land devised to him by 
his father, where he died in 1880. 

Joseph Allen, the second son of Lanty, lives at his father's old 
homestead. He married Susan DuBois in 1859, and had five chil- 
dren : Susan, the wife of J. L. Meadows ; Martha J., wife of M. V. 
Wheeler; David U., Allen B. and George W., who live in Fayette 
County. Rebecca J., the oldest daughter of Lanty, married Andrew 
J. Honaker, May 18, 1865, and had four sons, Calvin L., Oscar T., 
Marion and Charles W. 

Jehu Shannon, the third son, married Frances Alderson. Lanty 
Graham had a son, Lanty Jackson, who was a Confederate soldier, 
and who died at Jackson, Miss., in 1863. Another son was Thomas 
C, who married Malinda Bryant in 1871, and whose two daughters, 
Laura, married James H. Harriss, and Jennie, who married 
Hugh P. Miller. 




V 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 371 

John, the second son of Joseph Graham, when he was sixty 
years old, married Mary J. Crews. 

Jane, the second daughter of Joseph Graham, died unmarried. 
She died a violent death some time prior to the war. It was never 
known whether she died by her own hand or whether she was 
killed. She was missing for some time, and a vigilant search was 
instituted, and the whole neighborhood was enlisted in the search. 
Her body was finally recovered, and showed evidences of a violent 
death. It was in a wild and unfrequented place; and whether she 
had gone there and died by her own hand was never known. Sus- 
picion fastened on her kinsman and brother, James Graham, who 
was arrested and placed in jail. Finally the case was removed to 
Giles County for trial, a change of venue being had from Monroe 
County, where the public feeling was strong against him. He was 
defended by the late Senator Allen T. Caperton and other distin- 
guished attorneys. The trial resulted in his acquittal of any crime, 
and the matter was not prosecuted further. This was a noted case 
in its day. This son, James Graham, was the third son of Joseph 
Graham, and lived to an old age before marrying, in 1877. He 
married Rebecca A. Vass, a daughter of Curtis Vass, and she still 
survives. He spent several years in the West, in Ohio and In- 
diana, Illinois, Missouri and Kentucky. He returned at the close 
of the Civil War, and remained in this country until his death in 
1889, residing about one mile from the old Joseph Graham home- 
stead. 

Elizabeth, the third daughter of Joseph Graham, married Archi- 
bald Ballangee and settled on a portion of her father's land. She 
died on the 12th of January, 1857, leaving four children. Archibald 
Ballangee was born November 13, 1819, and died March 4, 1894. 
His children were Cynthia Jane, who married J. H. Bowden; 
Martha Florence, the wife of J. H. Harrah; Mary Hicks, wife of 
Marion Hicks, and one son, Herndon Ballangee. 

Ann Graham, the fourth daughter of James Graham, died in 
1837, aged nineteen, unmarried. 

Rebecca, the youngest daughter of Joseph Graham, married 
John R. Ballangee, a son of George Ballangee, of the mouth of 
Greenbrier River, and who was a son of Isaac, the settler, who 
located there in 1780, when George was one year old. The Bal- 
langees came from North Carolina, and are of French descent. 
He owned one-half of the George Ballangee farm by devise, and 
out of which grew extensive litigation between his heirs and their 
uncle, Evi Ballangee, and Aunt Katie, neither of whom married, 



372 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and at their death their estate descended to their next of kin, some 
fifty in number, scattered throughout the land. This litigation is 
of record in the office of the Circuit Court of Summers County, 
and consists of three suits in chancery. 

John R. and wife later removed onto the land which she inher- 
ited from her father, Joseph Graham, at the immediate foot of 
Keeney's Knob, on the east side, where he died in 1852, leaving 
three children, David Graham Ballangee, the oldest, who married 
Delphia Flint, a daughter of Jerry D. Flint. He now resides at 
the old Joseph Graham home, is its owner and is the postmaster at 
that place, and is given more extended notice elsewhere. 

Rebecca J., youngest daughter of John R. Ballangee, married 
Robert Carter, whose children are Otey C. Carter, Alice, George 
and Walter. 

Joseph Graham, the ancestor, died December , 1857, aged 

ninety-one years. He was a large land owner, having accumulated 
2,000 acres in a compact body, and owned a number of slaves. The 
whole of this land was devised to his descendants. The father of 
Rebecca was Colonel James Graham, of the Lowell settlement, 
and this land of 330 acres at Clayton was patented by her father in 
1786 and by him given to his daughter, and has been in the family 
for 121 years. Joseph Graham's father was a son of David Graham, 
Sr., who lived in Bath, Virginia, and a son of John, Sr. Over the 
will and lands of Joseph Graham litigation grew among his chil- 
dren in the Circuit Court of Monroe County, and which was car- 
ried to the Supreme Court of West Virginia. 

Florence Graham, the daughter of John Graham, the senior 
and founder of. the family originally, to which direct descent is 
traced, married her cousin, Colonel James Graham, who settled at 
Lowell in 1774, and a fort was erected where the Lowell Hotel now 
stands, known as Graham's Fort ; and when he built the house at 
Lowell, which was 24 x 30 feet, he made it peculiarly strong to 
protect himself and family against the Indians. The sills are of 
walnut and in a good state of preservation to this day. There . are 
two large stone chimneys. The fireplace is six feet wide, with a 
wooden arch five feet high. All nails are wrought, made at the 
blacksmith shop, and all lumber sawed with a "whip-saw" by hand. 
The stone was transported for the chimneys from a mile up the 
river in a canoe. It was a fine house for those days. 

John Graham, the oldest son of Colonel Graham, was killed by 
the Indians at the attack on Fort Donnally. William Graham mar- 
ried Catherine Johnson in 1809, and settled on the Riflfe place on 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 373 



Greenbrier River, of 400 acres, which was patented to William 
Graham in 1785. He was appointed a major of the Sixty-sixth Regi- 
ment of Virginia by the first county court held at the organization 
of Monroe County, and was elected in 1809 a representative to the 
General Assembly of Virginia. He was a justice of the peace of 
that county, and held the office for thirty-seven years, or until his 
death. He had three children, James, born in 1810, who married 
Patsy Gwinn, daugher of Joseph Gwinn; William, Jr., married 
Rebecca, daughter of Lanty Kincaide. 

David, the third son, married Mary Stodgill in 1795, and settled 
at the mouth of Hungart's Creek on what was later known as the 
Woodson farm, and the hewed log house built by him still stands 
there. He was a surveyor, and was a lieutenant in a company of 
the Sixty-sixth Militia Regiment. 

Jane, the second daughter of Colonel James Graham, married 
David Jarrett, and settled on the May's farm near Buffalo Lick 
(Pence Springs). 

Florence, the second daughter of Colonel James Graham, mar- 
ried Jarrett See. 

James Graham, the fourth son, married Lea Jarrett in 1800, a 
sister of James Jarrett, Sr., and also located on the Riffe Bottoms, 
at the upper end. His son, Samuel, married Sallie Jarrett, a daugh- 
ter of David Jarrett, the father of David Jarrett who married Jane 
Graham. He settled on the James Nowlan or Tolley farm, which 
was patented by Colonel James Graham, Sr., in 1785, and his daugh- 
ter, Susan, married Andrew Jarrett, a brother of the late James and 
Joseph Jarrett, of Greenbrier. Samuel Graham undertook to ford 
at Haynes' Ford when the river was flush in March, 1819, near his 
home, and was drowned. The farm of 400 acres where Samuel 
Graham lived descended to his son-in-law, Andrew Jarrett, and was 
by him sold to Madison Haynes in 1840, and later a portion pur- 
chased by Nowlan. 

Lanty, another son, married Elizabeth Stodgill, and Rebecca, 
the other daughter, as above stated, married Joseph Graham. 

Colonel James Graham was evidently born in Donegal, Ireland, 
as was his father, a brother of John Graham, Sr., who settled on the 
Greenbrier River; whether he came to America is not known. He 
was uncle of said Colonel James Graham and of David, who set- 
tied in Bath. 

There have been several surveyors in the family, a number of 
whom were experts, and many of them have held honorable posi- 



374 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



tions. They are noted for their intelligence and sagacity in busi- 
ness and other affairs. 

R. Hunter Graham, a son of James Allen Graham, a young 
lawyer, educated at the common schools and graduated in law at 
Columbia University of Washington, D. C, is now engaged in the 
practice of law in Hinton. 

JOHN W. GRAHAM. 

This is the youngest son of David Graham, who is the oldest 
member of that family now living, and one of the old residents of 
this section of the country. John W. Graham was born at Clayton 
July 9, 1860. He was married on the 24th of August, 1892. to Miss 
Frankie Lowry, a daughter of J. W. Lowry, one of the pioneer 
settlers of Fayette County. He was raised on the farm, where he 
spent his early life, first engaging in other business at Xew Rich- 
mond, where he established a plant for the manufacture of timber 
products, which he disposed of in 1893, and removed to Central 
City, where he resided until early in 1899, at which time he became 
proprietor of the old Republican newspaper plant at Hinton, and 
founded the present "Hinton Leader," which he has edited and 
published since that clay until the present. It is an up-to-date, 
enterprising country newspaper with a large circulation, and is 
prospering, Mr7 Graham being a Republican in his politics. He 
established the "Daily News," the first daily newspaper ever printed 
in Summers County. May 5. 1902. and continues the same unto this 
day. He publishes the same in connection with his "Leader." oper- 
ating only one plant. The first issue was on May 5, 1902. It is a 
four-page, five-column paper, and is the pioneer paper of that char- 
acter in this section. It is independent in its political views. 

John W. Graham is a Republican in politics, and has taken a 
decided stand in political matters, and was one of the leaders in 
the political troubles which beset the party from 1902 to 1906. of 
that branch of the party known as the "'Old-timers." he declining, 
with many other of the leading and influential Republicans, to 
support the entire ticket nominated by his party in 1904. Pie has 
been, also, as well as his paper with its influence, a violent opponent 
to the present State administration, headed by Governor Dawson, 
being a follower of the Teter wing: nor has he been kindly 
disposed toward the new and existing tax laws being put in force 
in the last three or four years, but he is an ardent Republican, and 
believes in the doctrines of that party, as are all of his family in 
this county. 



SHISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



375 



DR. JOSEPH ANDREW FOX. 

Dr. Fox is a native of Meigs County, Ohio, but was reared in 
Jackson County, West Virginia. He is of direct German descent, 
his father being a German, and the original Dutch spelling of the 
name was Fuchs. Dr. Fox emigrated to Summers County about 
fifteen years ago, and engaged in the occupation of barber, by 
which means he procured the funds to attend the Concord Normal 
School, and later a medical college, the University of Maryland, 
graduating from the University of Nashville College of Medicine 
in 1903. After his graduation he stood a successful examination 
before the medical examiners of West Virginia, located at Hinton, 
and entered into active practice in July, 1902. He has worked 
himself up from the ground floor, starting without means, money or 
prestige, and is now one of the men of financial means in Summers 
County, owning large interests in real estate. His brothers, Ed., 
Jake and William, also located in Hinton and followed the barber 
business for some time, Jake now being engaged in the butcher 
business, and Ed. and William still operating the barber shop. 
Dr. Fox is interested in a number of the leading enterprises of this 
section, hiving been the promoter of the Hinton Toll Bridge Com- 
pany and one of its largest stockholders. He supervised its con- 
struction, securing franchises, rights of way, etc. He is also 
interested in the laundry business and other successful enterprises. 
He was born on the 4th day of January, 1875, and married Miss 
A. M. Rush in May, 1897. Dr. Fox also is a graduate in pharmacy 
in the University of the South. His father's name, in German, is 
Adams Fuchs; his mother's maiden name was Catherine Wink, 
and she is also a native German. They emigrated from Germany 
to America soon after their marriage, thirty-eight years ago, and 
first located in Meigs County, and then across the Ohio River into 
Jackson County, West Virginia, where they now reside. 

J. FRED BRIANT. 

There is but one family of this name, although there are others 
who spell their name Bryant. J. Fred Briant was born in Morris 
County, New Jersey, and descends from one of the old ancestral 
families of the State of New Jersey. The family is able to trace 
its lineage to Elias Briant, who settled in that State at Springfield, 
a short distance from Elizabeth Port, which was then one of the 
chief seaports of that country, in 1690. The grandfather of the 



376 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



subject of this sketch was named Elias, who had four brothers, the 
five brothers being soldiers in the American Army during the eight- 
year war of the Revolution for American independence. These 
five were the grandfather and four grand uncles, and, strange to 
say, each of these four brothers of the grandfather spelled their 
name Bryant, although the original records of the original settler 
and other documentary evidence show the spelling of the name to 
be Briant, and there is in the possession of Elias Briant, the brother 
of J. Fred, a stamp made in 1750 of metal for stamping his name 
on his work tools, the stamp spelling the name with an "i" — Briant. 
The original owner of this stamp was a blacksmith, and Elias 
seems to have been an original family name descended from gen- 
eration to generation. Elias Briant, the father of J. Fred Briant, 
was born in 1799. After the Revolution the brothers scattered, 
settling in different sections of the country, and passing westward, 
emigrated in that direction, one coming to Virginia, another to 
Ohio, and the descendants are scattered promiscuously throughout 
the country. Periodically these descendants meet and hold a re- 
union of the Briant clan. 

J. Fred Briant came to Summers County in August, 1886, lo- 
cating at Little Bend Tunnel as a telegraph operator, and afterward 
depot agent at Talcott, and was finally promoted to train dispatcher 
at Hinton in 1899, which position he occupies at this time, being 
associated in that office with the Irish citizen, M. A. Boland, who is 
chief dispatcher, and who worked himself up from the bottom. 
His father, commonly known as Billy Boland, located at New Rich- 
mond soon after the building of the railway, where Mike was born. 
He learned telegraphy, and has been with the C. & O. Railway 
Company since, working up from one station to another. His 
father was accidentally killed at the crossing in Avis several years 
ago. He was an Irishman from Ireland and an honest citizen. He 
was track-w T alker for many years for that road. M. A., in addition 
to his railway engagements, is a director in the Citizen's Bank 
and one of the business men of the city. 

In 1895, Mr. Briant was appointed justice of the peace for Tal- 
cott District, to fill a vacancy caused by the resignation of Squire 
James P. Staton, now located at Glenn Jean in Fayette County, 
where he has been a justice for the last twelve years. In 1896, 
Mr. Briant was elected to the office of justice of the peace of Tal- 
cott District, which position he filled intelligently and honorably to 
himself and constituents for four years. In 1900 he was the nomi- 
nee of the Democratic party of the county for representative to the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 377 



House of Delegates, and was elected, and held that position for a 
full term, declining further office. He is an intelligent gentleman, 
a fluent speaker, well posted on public affairs of the day and times. 
When a boy he lost his left hand in attempting to board a train in 
Philadelphia. In 1887 he was united in marriage to Miss E. A. 
Wyant, a daughter of Peter B. Wyant, of Talcott District, and she 
is a descendant of that ancient and honorable family of German 
descent. They have three children, James R., Leah and Arminta. 

JORDAN. 

One of the ancient families of the New River settlements was 
that of Jordan, a Southwest Virginia family. 

Thomas Jordan was a native of England and an English soldier 
who came to America with Burgoyne's army in the War of the 
Revolution and fought therein for the cause of King George until 
the capture of that army by General Gage at the Battle of Saratoga. 
After the capture, he was sent by the Americans as a prisoner of 
war, along with the other captives, to the fastnesses of Virginia 
until exchanged. During his captivity he became acquainted with 
Lucy O'Neal, an Irish girl, to whom he was married, and settled at 
the junction of the Cow Pasture and Jackson's River, and there 
lived and raised a large family. One of his sons was Hugh Jordan, 
who married Sallie Chapman, a daughter of Isaac Chapman, one 
of the most ancient settlers in the Middle New River Valley. They 
settled at Providence, in Giles County. Hugh Jordan was a great 
hunter, and during the hunting seasons annually came to the wil- 
derness of the Bluestone around about Clover Bottoms, where he 
had a hunting lodge, and it was at that place that Gordon L. Jordan 
was born, but he raised his family in Giles County. In those days 
wolves and other ferocious animals were plentiful in all the region 
round about where Jordan lived at Clover Bottom, and the wife 
of Hugh Jordan spent many nights sleeping under the rafters in 
the loft of the cabin, to keep out of the way of the wolves which 
were howling around for admittance. Hugh Jordan returned to 
Providence, and there were sixteen children born to them — four 
boys and twelve girls. The boys were Gordon L., Thomas, William 
W. and Oscar. Gordan L. Jordan married Elizabeth G. Toney, of 
Giles County, a daughter of Captain Jonathan Toney, and was 
raised where the old brick house of the Toneys still stands at Glenn 
Lynn, on the Norfolk & Western Railway, near the mouth of East 
River, in Giles County. Gordon L. Jordan was born on the 18th 



378 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



day of July, 1812, and died on the 18th day of June, 1886. He was 
by profession a contractor in stone, brick and plaster work. In 1849 
he removed to Pipestem, then Mercer County. There were ten 
children ; two sons. One died in his youth ; the other, our present 
county man, John H. Jordan. Miss Mary died in 1886, never having 
married. Clara Frances married M. D. Tompkins, of Hanover 
County, Virginia, and was one of the first settlers of Hinton, where 
he located at the beginning of the building of the town and engaged 
in the mercantile business, and in which business he is still engaged 
to this date, and is now constructing the three-story brick business 
building at the railway crossing in Upper Hinton, through Eli W. 
Taylor, the architect, being the contractor. Miss Lizzie, his daugh- 
ter, is one of the teachers in the Hinton High School, one son, Ed., 
is engaged with the First National Bank of Huntington. Other 
sons are attending school at Marshall College and Bethany College. 
Emma L. Jordan married James L. Barker, a son of Calloway 
Barker, who died on the Barker's Bottom at their home several 
years ago, in 1882, leaving one daughter, Lula, who married D. R. 
Barton, and now resides near Pack's Ferry. Lizzie Jordan married 
Clifton Lane, a son of Charles Lane, of Pipestem District, and a 
prosperous farmer at Pipestem. Nannie married W. B. Gautier, 
of Athens, and died in 1889, leaving one son, Claude V. Gautier, now 
a medical student at the West Virginia University. The other 
children of G. L. Jordan died from diphtheria while young. Gordon 
L. Jordan, upon his removal to Pipestem, engaged in the mercan- 
tile business up until the beginning of the Civil War. Prior to that 
time he had been a justice of the peace and a member of the County 
Court of Mercer County. He was a sincere and loyal Southern 
man ; loyal also to the Union, and violently opposed to secession 
of the States, and never gave in his adherence to the Southern 
cause until the firing on Fort Sumter. The feeling against Mr. 
Jordan in the early part of the war by Union sympathizers and 
bushwhackers was so vigorous that he emigrated in 1862 to Giles 
County, where he remained for one year, and then returned home, 
remaining there until the termination of the war. Soon after his 
settlement at Pipestem he constructed a large, two-story frame 
residence, which was the first frame residence ever built in Pipe- 
stem District. He and his brother also, about the same time, built 
and donated to the Methodist Church a frame house of worship, 
which is known to-day as Jordan's Chapel. The framing and tim- 
bers in these buildings were hewn from trees, the old-fashioned 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 379 



nails being used in their construction, and the plank all sawed with 
the whip or pit-saw. 

After the war Gordon L. Jordan followed farming until his 
death, and that farm remained in the hands of his children until 
1902, when the same was sold to Kelsoe & Dickey, of Pennsylvania. 
Mr. Jordan was one of the first justices of the peace in the county 
after its formation, and held the office for four years by election. 
At the first election held within Summers County after its creation 
he was elected as a delegate to the House of Delegates, and repre- 
sented the county as its first representative in that legislative body 
after its formation. He was an active man in the organization of 
the new county. He was unable to hold any office after the war 
until after the abolition of the infamous test oath. In politics he 
was a Democrat, and a Methodist in his religious beliefs, and one 
of the principal supporters of that denomination in that section, it 
being headquarters for all the Methodist ministers round about. 
The Jordan's Chapel was constructed in 1852. He was a man of 
fearless character and bravery. When a boy of fifteen, he, with 
William Mahood, descended into a cave in Giles County sixty feet, 
and killed a wolf. The wolf had fallen down through a sink hole, 
or opening in the surface, having been caught in a steel trap. They 
cut Indian ladders and descended from one bench to another. He 
held the light while Mahood slew the wolf. 

One of the first licenses to keep a house of public entertainment 
ever granted in the county was to Mr. Jordan. His residence was 
the half-way point between Union and Raleigh Court House and 
Princeton, and was the stopping-place for persons going from points 
west to the latter town. The celebrated and pioneer lawyers, Gen. 
Chapman, who was a first cousin to Mr. Jordan ; Senator Allen T. 
Caperton, who was a first cousin to Mrs. Jordan ; Frank Hereford, 
John E. Kenna, James W. Davis, Judge Gillespie, Judge Harrison, 
Judge Ward, Major McGinnis, Gov. Samuel Price, and many other 
celebrated men made their headquarters there in passing through 

this region. His wife died on the day of April, 1901, at 

the residence of J. H. Jordan in Hinton, where she lived the last five 
years of her life. She was born in 1822. Thomas Jordan, the other 
brother, who emigrated to Pipestem, entered into the mercantile 
business with his brother, Gordon, where he only remained two or 
three years. While in that country, he and the brothers purchased 
title to several hundred acres of timber land, which became valuable 
in recent years, and was disposed of to Pennsylvania capitalists. 
He afterwards settled in Tennessee. All of the Jordans in America. 



380 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



so far as known, are descended from this British soldier. One of 
his descendants settled in Indiana, and they are scattered over Ohio 
and many other parts of the country. The Jordan brothers first 
sold goods up until the war at the old James Ellison place at 
Pipestem. 

John Hugh Jordan is the only member of that family of Jordans 
now . living in Summers County, and is the only son of Gordon L. 
Jordan, who grew to maturity. He was educated in the free schools, 
and graduated with honor at the Normal School at Athens, and then 
took a post-graduate course at the National Normal University at 
Lebanon, Ohio, taught school in this county and in Raleigh, and 
was a teacher in the Hinton public schools at the time they were 
transformed into a high school, he being the first principal, and it 
was he who graded the Hinton schools. He was appointed a clerk 
in 1889 in the office of the State Auditor, Patrick F. Duffy, which 
position he held for four years. Upon the election of Governor 
McCorkle, in 1892, he was appointed Assistant Labor Commissioner, 
which position he held two years, and then resigned, returning to 
Hinton and organizing the Bank of Summers in 1895, which was 
afterwards converted into the present National Bank of Summers. 
He was elected its first cashier, which position he holds to this day. 
He is connected with a number of the other principal local business 
enterprises, among them being the New River Grocery Company, 
of which he is treasurer, a director and a stockholder, and of which 
he was the principal promoter. He is a stockholder and director in 
the Hinton Water, Light & Supply Company; a stockholder of 
the Greenbrier Springs Company, at which place he has a neat 
cottage, where his family spends part of the summer. He is a 
stockholder and director in the Hinton Foundry & Machine Com- 
pany; a stockholder in the Bank of Wyoming and the Bank of 
Athens ; also a stockholder and officer in the New River Milling 
Company and other corporations. Mr. Jordan was born on the 
11th day of May, 1857. 

He married Miss Lilly Brightwell, a daughter of Charles Bright- 
well, of Prince Edward County, Virginia, by which marriage there 
are three children, Julian J., who is a student at the Virginia Mili- 
tary Institute ; William W., who is a clerk in the National Bank 
of Summers, and Miss Lilly, who is a student at the Hinton High 
School. His first wife died in 1893, and in 1899 he was married 
the second time to Miss Hattie W. Brightwell, of Roanoke, Vir- 
ginia, a sister of Captain W. J. Brightwell, of Hinton, and of 
Walter Brightwell, lately deceased, at Talcott. By this marriage 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 381 

there are four children, Hugh C, Mary E., John Gordon and Nellie 
Lee. 

Mr. Jordan has not been a candidate for office in Summers 
County except in one instance, when he was the nominee of his 
party for superintendent of schools, but by reason of the factional 
trouble then existing, growing out of the death of the late Hon. 
Elbert Fowler, and the trial of J. Speed Thompson for his killing, 
in which he was a witness, he was defeated by a small majority by 
Jonathan F. Lilly, of Jumping Branch. He has occupied the office 
of city councilman ; is a man of strong character, loyal to his friends, 
and is a man of excellent business judgment, enterprising, pushing 
and energetic. In 1906 he erected in Hinton, on the court house 
square, a handsome brick residence, which he now occupies. He 
was one of the promoters and organizers of the Bank of Raleigh, 
the Bank of Wyoming, the Logan National Bank and the Bank 
of Athens. 

Hugh Jordan, the grandfather of John H. Jordan, was a soldier 
of the War of 1812, and fought at the Battle of New Orleans under 
General Andrew Jackson. Thomas Jordan, the ancestor of this 
family in this country, was one of the most powerful men physically 
in all the British Army, and his physical prowess was a matter of 
notoriety throughout the same. He was a resident and a property 
owner on land afterward covered by the city of London, and it 
was claimed for generations that he had an estate in those prop- 
erties by inheritance, but it was abandoned by him, he failing to 
make any effort to secure the same or to return to that country for 
that purpose. . 

Gordon L. Jordan, while a refugee at Pearisburg in 1862, was 
captured by the Federal soldiers, being the Twenty-second Ohio 
Regiment, under General Rutherford B. Hayes, then a lieutenant 
colonel, and of which command William McKinley, also afterwards 
President of the United States, was a sergeant. His army passed 
down New River through Summers County, crossing at Pack's 
Ferry and following the old turnpike road to Raleigh Court House, 
where it encamped for some time, Major McKinley occupying the 
residence of Mr. Davis, the father of the present sheriff of that 
county, John R. Davis ; Mrs. Davis still resides in the same build- 
ing, and is a very aged lady; but the Union armies were not able 
to secure their capture of Mr. Jordan, and they being attacked in 
the neighborhood of Pearisburg by Colonel, afterwards General, 
John McCausland, of Mason County, who drove the Federals out, 
recaptured Mr. Jordan, who was set at liberty, and afterward re- 



382 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



turned to his home in Pipestem. Mr. Jordan, at the time of his 
capture, was driving a team of horses on the streets of Pearisburg. 
His wife and son, John, were with him, the latter remembering 
very distinctly the incidents connected with the capture and release. 
J. H. Jordan also remembers very distinctly of witnessing the 
Battle of Pearisburg, seeing and firing the cannons, etc., which 
was a very exciting occasion to a youth of his years, he then being 
five years of age. 

John H. Jordan is a Knight Templar in Masonry; an Odd Fel- 
low; a member of the Order of Red Men and the Knights of the 
Golden Eagle ; the Ancient Order of United Workmen ; also of the 
Modern Woodmen of America. 

The great grandmother of John H. Jordan, Airs. Tompkies, an- 
other of the children of G. L. Jordan, was a daughter of Mitchell 
Clay, the first settler at Clover Bottom, and a sister of Tabitha 
Clay, who was killed by the Indians, an account of which is given 
elsewhere. Squire William Hughes, of Pipestem, married Louise 
Jordan, a sister of Gordon L. Jordan. 

SHEFFEY. 

The old Jordan Chapel has been witness to many celebrated 
revival meetings by various ministers, the most celebrated of which 
was by Robert Sawyers Sheffey, a pioneer Methodist preacher, who 
was celebrated throughout all that region and Southwest Virginia. 
He was an eccentric itinerant, and one of the most remarkable 
characters that has ever lived in the Xew River Valley. During 
the life of Gordon L. Jordan he regularly visited him about once 
a year, and frequently held meetings at the old chapel. He was 
born on July 4, 1820, and died in Giles County in 1902. He was a 
native of Wythe County. He came into the Xew River Valley in 
1859, and married a Miss Stafford. He was a pious, devout, Chris- 
tian and godly man, and was a man of wonderful faith in God and 
most eloquent in public prayer. The most remarkable thing about 
this eccentric man was that his prayers for special things were not 
in vain, for what he asked the Lord for he always seemed to receive. 
So often were his prayers answered and his highest hopes and 
aspirations gratified, that people who knew him well and were 
disposed to do evil things, were frequently alarmed for fear he 
would call down upon them vengeance from heaven, and they be- 
lieved that if he asked the Lord to smite them with pestilence or 
death, it would be done. Doubts of his sanity were expressed. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 383 



These expressions, after being conveyed to Mr. ShefTey, he would 
often publicly repeat, and comment thereon by saying, "Would to 
the Lord that they were crazy on the same subject that I am." 

Many are the interesting stories told of this preacher and his 
conduct, one or two of which we will give, as he was known to a 
large number of people throughout the upper region of the county, 
and I take them by permission from Judge Johnston's "New River 
Settlements." 

Twenty-five years or more ago Mr. SherTey had a regular preach- 
ing place on East River in Mercer County near the residence of 
Anderson Tiller, at whose house, when in the neighborhood, he 
made his stopping place. It was known that Mr. SherTey was ex- 
ceedingly fond of sweet things, and especially of honey, and when 
on a preaching tour he went to fill this appointment on East River, 
and as was usual, became a guest of Brother Tiller. Being on a 
Sunday morning, and late in the summer season, while at breakfast, 
Mr. Tiller remarked to Mr. ShefTey that he regretted he had no honey 
for him — that his bees had done no good, had not swarmed, and 
he feared that they had frozen out during the winter, or something 
had destroyed them. Mr. ShefTey arose from the table, went down 
upon his knees, and told the Lord that his brother's bees had not 
swarmed, and that there was no honey in the house, and he im- 
plored to have the bees swarms. Scarcely had his petition ceased, 
when the swarm came with such rapidity that Tiller was unable 
to secure rapidly enough sufficient gums to save them. There is 
no doubt about the truth of this incident. 

At a meeting held by Mr. SherTey at Jordan's Chapel, Dr. Bray, 
a physician in the neighborhood, took his wife, Mrs. Martha Bray, 
the mother of Mrs. Captain Frank Cox, now living in this city, and 
was present at the Sunday morning services, and had with them 
a nursing infant child, which was taken suddenly ill about the close 
of the services. Mrs. Bray became alarmed and grief-stricken about 
the condition of her child, and in her paroxysms she cried out that 
her child was dying. A large number of people were present, who 
gathered around the mother and child, supposed to be dying, when 
Mr. ShefTey appeared, and being informed of the cause of the 
trouble, said, "Here 3 brother, give me the little child ;" and taking 
it in his arms, he fell upon his knees, and in a most earnest prayer 
to God, asked for the life of the little child, and that it might be 
restored to its mother. Arising from his position on the ground, 
he handed the child to its father, saying, "Here, brother, is your 
little child, well and all right." So it was. • 



384 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



These are only a few of the many truthful and similar incidents 
which are related of this strange man. He had a wonderful faith 
in God's Providence — His care for His people, in providing for 
their wants, physical and spiritual. 

On one occasion he met a man in a road on a very cold day. and 
the man had on no socks. Mr. Sheftey, observing this, took oft his 
own and gave them to the man. After riding some distance, he 
stopped at a house, and the lady of the house said to him that she 
had knit for him some nice pairs of socks, which she wished to present 
to him. 

He could not bear to see his horse suffering, or even any other 
animal — not even a bug if turned on its back: and he has been 
known to dismount from his horse and turn the bug over. If he 
found a hungry dog or animal, he would give it his lunch, not eating 
it himself. When provided with lunch for a journey through the 
mountains, the first hungry-looking dog he met. he would give it 
to the dog, and go hungry the remainder of the journey. 

On the upper waters of Bluestone, many years ago, was a 
whiskey distillery operated by a man and his son. Mr. Sheffey 
stopped in the neighborhood at the home of a good Methodist 
family. The good wife of the house told him of this distillery, and 
that it was wrecking the lives of many of the young men in the 
community, and requested him to pray for its removal, which he 
promised to do. The lady inquired how long it would be before 
she might expect his prayer to be answered. He replied, about 
twelve months, and, sure enough, in twelve months the distillery 
was closed up and the owner and his son in jail. 

On another occasion, on Wolf Creek, near Rocky Gap. he was 
informed by a mother of a family of the existence of a distillery in 
the neighborhood which was proving a great evil, and requested 
to pray for its removal. He immediately went to the Lord in 
prayer, and asked Him to destroy the evil. and. if necessary, to send 
fire from heaven to burn it up. That night an old. dry tree took 
fire near the distillery, fell on the shanty, and destroyed the whole 
thing. 

J. B. LAVENDER. 

This gentleman is of English descent and a native of Mont- 
gomery County, Virginia, where his ancestors settled on their 
emigration to this country. He was born September 6. 1849, mar- 
ried Miss Ella Bransford. of Greenbrier County, a daughter of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 385 



Henry Bransford, in 1876. He is by profession a civil engineer, 
architect and builder, and has supervised some of the substantial 
buildings of Hinton. He was the architect and contractor for the 
handsome brick residence of James T. McCreery on Temple Street, 
and the architect of the Chesapeake Hotel, now owned by H. Ewart, 
built by A. B. Perkins. Mr. Lavender, when he first moved from 
Virginia, located in Ohio, then in Kanawha County, and settled in 
Hinton in 1882, and is one of the older residents. He was originally 
a Democrat in politics, but changed his views on the political 
parties, and in 1888 was the Republican candidate for surveyor of 
the county, and was the nominee of that party at a later election, 
but the party being in the minority, he was defeated in each in- 
stance. He assisted in the re-assessment of the real estate of the 
county in 1905 under the new tax laws of West Virginia, Jonathan 
Lee Barker being the assessor, with Mr. Lavender as assistant. In 
1900 he was the United States census enumerator for one-half of 
the county, along with the same Mr. Barker, who was the enumer- 
ator for the other half. Mr. Lavender is also a professional pho- 
tographer, which occupation he follows for a diversion. He is also 
local minister of the Methodist Church. By his courtesy we are 
able to get a cut of the old George Ballangee mansion at the mouth 
of Greenbrier River. 



BLAKE. 

Andrew Jackson Blake resides near Clayton Post Office. He 
is a native of Fayette County, and was born August 14, 1830. He 
was the owner of coal lands in Fayette County, and as develop- 
ments came, he sold and removed to the Clayton neighborhood in 
1901, along with his sons, Marcus and Thomas Blake, and two 
other sons, Edward R. and William Preston. Edward lives in Ne- 
braska, and William Preston in Fayette. The Blakes are all farm- 
ers by occupation, Democrats in politics and missionary Baptists. 
The father of Andrew Jackson Blake was William Blake, who was 
born in 1789 in the upper end of Greebrier County. He first settled 
near Fayetteville, and later near Mt. Hope, in Fayette County. The 
Blakes are of Irish descent. A. J. Blake married Mary Howery, 
January 16, 1881. He was a member of Company A, Edgar's Bat- 
talion, and was engaged during the war as a scout for two years. 
Marcus Blake married Rhoda E. Dotson, a daughter of Lazarus 
Dotson. Thomas married Minnie Knafe in Fayette County. Her 
father's name was Isaac Knafe, a native of Floyd County, Virginia. 



386 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



They purchased the old Joseph Hill place near Clayton. Mr. A. J. 
Blake is a man seventy-seven years of age, hale and hearty, and 
a man of fine recollection. The Blakes are thrifty, enterprising, 
law-abiding citizens. • 

THE MILLER FAMILY. 

John Miller, Sr.'s father's name was Patrick Miller, which would 
indicate that the ancestor was an Irishman. Patrick Miller was 
born on the Atlantic Ocean while his parents were emigrating to 
America. Patrick Miller's father settled on the spot where the city 
of Staunton, Augusta County, Virginia, is built. I have but little 
information as to the life and movements of the great-grandfather, 
Patrick, but he was of Scotch-Irish descent. 

We have in our possession, by descent, a number of very old 
and ancient books, w T hich belonged to Patrick Miller, and have his 
name written on the fly-leaf thereof. I am not informed as to how 
many children he had, or where they settled. John, the senior, 
having some family differences, set out in the world for himself, 
and came to Lick Creek, in Greenbrier County, more than 100 years 
ago, bringing with him three negro slaves, Abe, Sarah and Minta, 
settling at the forks of Slater's Creek, Flag Fork and Lick Creek, 
on the farm, and built the house now resided in by William Shu- 
mate, who purchased the same from J. W. Alderson. He came 
through the mountains over the Patterson Mountain, having mar- 
ried a Miss Jane Hodge, of Highland County, Virginia. The three 
slaves were given him by his father. He acquired title to ninety 
acres of land, originally, where his residence was built by first 
clearing out a small patch of ground and raising a crop of corn 
there, thus securing title by what was known as the best and surest 
— the "corn title." This crop of corn was raised in the yard of the 
present building. After raising this crop of corn he secured a 
patent to the ninety acres. 

He was a carpenter by trade, and built what was in those days 
a fine house, double-story, hewed logs, with a dressed stone chim- 
ney ; evidently before this, however, building a single-story log 
house, which was afterward used as a kitchen and quarters for the 
slaves. This kitchen had one of the old-fashioned chimneys at 
least ten feet wide, built of small stone, with a hickory hewed log 
for an arch. He made a portion, at least, of his own furniture of 
cherry and walnut; one, a large walnut, three-cornered cupboard, 
and the other, a book-case and desk and bureau combined, curiosi- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



387 



ties in this day. These pieces of furniture are as neat and as well 
finished as any we see in the modern days. 

He cleared up that fertile land and planted an orchard. Soon 
after he came, finding a wild bee tree, from which he got a start of 
bees, the same stock which is now held by C. L. Miller, of Foss, 
at this time, the stock being more than 100 years old. He was a 
Presbyterian, and Dr. McElheney ministered to his spiritual wants, 
visiting him once a month for many years. He owned his own 
still, manufactured his own spirits from the fruit raised in his 
orchard, and evidently enjoyed all of the liberties dreamed of by 
the persecuted peoples of the British Isles, so many of whom emi- 
grated to this land in the early days to escape from religious 
persecution and to secure the liberties of which they dreamed. He 
died at the advanced age of seventy-four years, from cancer. It 
first appeared on his hand, which was amptuated, and it appeared 
again on his body, and was incurable, his wife having died some 
time previously from a similar cause. 

This farm of John Miller, Sr., passed to his sons, YYm. E. and 
A. A., thence by them the home plantation was conveyed to James 
W. Alderson, and by him sold to William Shumate, who now re- 
sides thereon. The other lands of A. A. Miller passed to his chil- 
dren, and thence to his son-in-law, John A. George, who now lives 
thereon. 

John Miller, the direct founder of the family, was a native of 
Bath County, Virginia, born on the Cow Pasture River, October 
13, 1772. His wife was Jean Hodge, born in Highland County, 
Virginia, on Cow Pasture River, on February 26, 1780. They re- 
moved to Lick Creek, then Greenbrier County, about the vear 1800, 
and reared a family consisting of: Patrick Henry, born November 
26, 1803; James Hodge, born October 19, 1805; John Hamilton, 
born January 5, 1808 ; Robert, born July 21, 1810; Ervin Benson, 
born June 1, 1815 ; Jean, born November 12, 1812 ; Mary Ann, born 
July 27, 1821 ; Margaret Elizabeth, born December 16. 1823 ; An- 
drew Alexander, born June 6, 1818, and William Erskine, born 
August 19, 1825. 

John Miller, Sr., and Jean Hodge were married January 27, 
1803. Patrick Henry Miller and Margaret George were married 
and removed to Gentry County, Mo., where their descendants still 
reside. 

James H. Miller and Aseneth Chapman were married May 25. 
1831, and he. after learning the tanner's trade with James Withrow, 
of Lewisburg, located at Gauley Bridge, then Virginia, where he 



388 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



engaged in the mercantile business for sixty years, continuing in 
active business until his death, the 23d of October, 1893, at the age 
of eighty-seven years, leaving surviving him one son, James Henry 
Miller, Jr., who succeeded to the business founded by his father. 
James H., the senior, was appointed postmaster at Gauley Bridge 
by President William Henry Harrison, and held the office until his 
death, more than forty years. He represented Fayette County in 
the Legislature, and filled other positions of trust. His son, James 
H., Jr., resides at the old homestead, and has continued successfully 
the business established by his father. He was elected sheriff of 
Fayette County, which position he resigned, and was also president 
of the county court, which position he held for six years, and suc- 
ceeded his father as postmaster at Gauley Bridge. His children 
surviving him are Fenton H., who married Mattie King; William 
Alexander, who married Pearl Helman ; Robert H., who married 
Leona Richmond; Jane T., who married James H. Miller, of Hin- 
ton, and Annie, who married Oscar L. Morris. 

Robert Miller and Ankey Alderson were married February 13, 
1834, and settled in Morgan County, Indiana, where their descend- 
ants still reside. 

Irvin B. and Sarah Alford were married September 1, 1836, and 
settled on Sewell Creek, in Fayette County. 

Andrew Alexander and Eliza Hinchman were married on the 

24th , 1846. After the death of the latter, on the 

9th of November, 1866, he was married the second time to Eliza- 
beth Thomas, of Centerville, Monroe County, on the 3d day of 
December, 1868. 

Mary Ann married Major Anderson A. McNeer, of Monroe 
County, on the 15th day of January, 1846. 

Jean Miller married Joseph Hill, of Putnam County, West Vir- 
ginia. 

Margaret E. and William B. McNeer were married on the 14th 

of , 1843, and William E. Miller and Sarah Barbara 

McNeer were married February 8, 1849. 

Those of the family of John Miller, the senior, who settled on 
and near the old homestead, were W r illiam E., who, being the young- 
est, retained the home farm., which he still owned at his Heath, 
owning a tract of over 400 acres. Andrew Alexander located one- 
half mile below on Lick Creek, where he acquired a plantation, 
some 1,000 acres of good land, which he owned at his death. He 
erected a substantial brick dwelling, the second one ever erected 
in that section of the ^country, and was one of the most enter- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 389 



prising citizens, having been a captain of militia and justice of the 
peace before the war, and one of the first supervisors and members 
of the county court on the formation of the county, being one of 
the principal factors in the formation of the new county into a 
thriving municipality, representing the county in the Legislature 
for a term, 1880-1881, while the capital of the State was still at 
Wheeling. He left surviving him two sons, James Houston, who 
located at Waxahatchie, Texas, and is now the president of the 
National Bank of Waxahatchie, and the owner of a majority of its 
stock, and George A. Miller, of Hinton, capitalist, being president 
of the New River Grocery Co., and connected with many other in- 
dustrial enterprises. 

James H. Miller, Sr., had one daughter, Eliza Ann, who died 
many years ago, unmarried. His wife was Asenath Chapman, of 
Frankfort, Ky., who lived to the advanced age of ninety-three years. 

Andrew Alexander Miller married first Miss Eliza Hinchman, 
a daughter of William Hinchman, a descendant of an English gen- 
tleman who settled at an early day near Lowell. One daughter of 
A. A. Miller — Elizabeth — married John A. George, who lives at 
the old A. A. Miller homestead on Lick Creek, she having died 
some four years ago. His second wife was Miss Elizabeth Thomas, 
of Monroe County. 

William Erskine Miller had four children, Charles Lewis, James 
Henry, Anderson Embury and Miss Mary Benson. Arvin Benson 
Miller left four sons, James William, who was engaged in the mer- 
cantile business in partnership with the late M. Hutchinson, whose 
daughter, J. Ellen, he married, removing to Hinton, where he now 
resides, being engaged in the hotel business, and owner and pro- 
prietor of the Hotel Miller ; John A., who married Miss Sallie 
Knapp, resides at Ashbury, in Greenbrier County, and is engaged 
in the mercantile business. His son, Dr. Roy Miller, is one of the 
surgeons at the Hinton Hospital ; Olan Benson, who married Miss 
Virginia Baber, died in the year 1903, having been engaged in the 
mercantile business for many years at Alderson, West Virginia. 
Irvin also left surviving him one daughter, Margaret Ann, who is 
living with her son, William, at Richmond, Virginia, at this time. 
She married Dr. Samuel AVilliams during the war on Lick Creek. 
Dr. Williams refugeed from Putnam County at the beginning of 
the war to Lick Creek, and there became acquainted with Miss 
Margaret Miller, and they were married. They resided at New 
Richmond for many years, where he died some twelve years ago. 
Dr. Williams weighed 350 pounds, was very short in stature, was a 



390 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

man of magnificent learning, having been educated at the Uni- 
versity of Virginia and the University of South Carolina, although 
he was very careless in his habits. It was he who provided the 
West Virginia stone now in the Washington Monument, from the 
quarry at New Richmond. 

Margaret E. Miller, who married William B. McNeer, located 
and resided on the Slater's Fork of Lick Creek until their deaths, 
about 1870, leaving two sons surviving them — John Caperton Mc- 
Neer, a resident of Fayette County, and William Newton McNeer, 
a resident of Charleston. 

Ervin Miller left four sons surviving him, Logan, who was killed 
in the War of the Rebellion ; John A., who is a merchant at Asbury, 
in Greenbrier County; James W., the hotel man of Hinton, and 
Olin B., a merchant of Alderson, as above stated. 

John Miller, Sr., died November 25, 1854; Jean Miller, wife of 
John Miller, Sr., died February 3, 1836; Jean Hill died November 
20, 1835; James Hodge Miller died October 23, 1893; Sarah Bar- 
bara Miller died February 6, 1896; Robert Miller died August 10, 
1887; Andrew A. Miller died March 26, 1898 ; John Hamilton Miller 
died February 18, 1811; Anky, wife of Robert, died July 2, 1890; 
Aseneth Chapman Miller died June 9, 1898. 



WILLIAM E. MILLER. 

William Erskine Miller was the youngest son of John Miller, 
Sr., and was born on the old homestead, w T hich is now owned by 
Mr. William Shumate, who purchased the property from J. W. 
Alderson, a son of L. M. Alderson, four years ago. 

The subject of this sketch was born August 18, 1825, and died 
on the 3d day of February, 1901. He was named for the late 
William Erskine, who built and at one time owned the Salt Sulphur 
Springs, in Monroe County, of whom he was a relative. We give 
below a sketch taken from the "Hinton Leader," written by Mr. 
John W. Graham, editor of that paper, immediately following his 
death : 

Death of William E. Miller. 

"William Erskine Miller, after an illness of several weeks with 
pneumonia, died at his home at Foss on Saturday the 3d irist., at 
12 :45 p. m. Funeral services were conducted at his home Sunday 
afternoon at one o'clock, by his pastor, Rev. H. A. Brown, of the 
Methodist" Church, after which the remains were interred at Hill 



GEORGE A. MILLER (at left), GREEN LEE LILLY. 
Salesmen for New River Grocery Company. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



391 



Top Cemetery. Mr. Miller was born August 19, 1825 near Green 
Sulphur Springs, this county, formerly of Greenbrier County, Vir- 
ginia, where a greater part of his life was spent. About ten years 
ago he moved with his family to Foss, near the mouth of Green- 
brier, where his death occurred just three days before the fourth 
anniversary of his wife's death. He is survived by four children, 
Hon. James H. Miller, of this city; A. E. Miller, of Beckley ; Charles 
L. and Miss Mary B. Miller, of Foss. 

"In his death Summers County loses one of her best and most 
honored citizens, the church one of its most consistent members. 
He possessed a combination of qualities rarely equalled and never 
surpassed. 

"And, in addition to this, he was of a most unselfish character 
and most humane and merciful disposition, with a gentleness in 
domestic and social life which obtained the admiration of all who 
knew him, and added to these the character of a consecrated and 
devoted Christian. During his long career not a blot ever fell upon 
his character, not a blemish ever rested on his life. It might be 
truly said of him, 'If every person to whom he had spoken some 
kind word, or for whom he had done some kind deed, could drop 
but one leaf upon his grave, he would bow beneath a wilderness 
of foliage.' " 

I also append a quotation from the "Hinton Independent Her- 
ald," referring to his death : 

"In his death this county loses an honest and upright citizen. 
Mr. Miller was an unassuming Christian gentleman. While a man 
of strong convictions, he was as gentle as a child, and obtruded his 
opinion on no one. He was not a politician, and despised chicanery 
of the demagogue ; was never a candidate for any office, and refused 
political preferment. He was a soldier in the Confederacy, loyal 
to his government, his friends and his country. He leaves as a 
heritage to his posterity an honorable and good name. He had no 
enemies. 'Those who knew him best loved him most.' It is a 
pleasure to pay a tribute to a man of his character. The world 
is better for his having lived among us. His place, no doubt, can 
be filled, but will it be? He was of a generation fast passing away, 
which should be emulated and remembered. 

"He leaves surviving him three sons, Charles L., A. E. and 
James H., and one daughter, Miss Mary B., who, with a large 
number of relations and friends, will cherish his memory and the 
honest, faithful, Christian character which he made and maintained 
throughout his long life of nearly seventy-five years. Mr. Miller 



392 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



was taken sick with pneumonia two weeks before his death, which 
was complicated with inflammatory rheumatism. His sufferings 
were fearful, but he bore them patiently, and his mind was clear to 
the last. He had been a consistent member of the M. E. Church 
South for forty years, and died in the faith of a Christian. His 
wife preceded him to the grave four years ago, nearly to the day, 
from the same dreaded disease, pneumonia. Funeral services were 
conducted at the residence on Sunday afternoon by his pastor, 
Rev. H. A. Brown, assisted by Rev. J. W. Holt, and the interment 
was at Hill Top Cemetery, where a large number had assembled 
to pay the last sad tribute to their departed friend." 

He was married to Miss Sarah Barbara McNeer, of Monroe 
County, who rests by his side at the beautiful Hill Top Cemetery. 
A handsome shaft has been erected b) their children to mark their 
last resting place. 

John Miller and Robert Miller, the seniors and half brothers, 
had a sister, Mary Miller, who married a Benson, who lived at 
Salt Sulphur Springs, and her daughter married William Erskine. 
Olive Benson Miller, Mary Benson Miller, Elizabeth Benson 
George (nee Miller) were named for this sister. 

John Alexander, of Monroe County, married Jane Miller, a 
daughter of Robert Miller, Sr., and a sister of John and Alexander 
Miller. John George married Margaret, another sister. Another 
sister married Thomas Ferry, who early moved to the West. His 
son, Thomas, went to California in the days of '49 as a gold miner, 
secured a considerable fortune, and now lives at Green Sulphur 
Springs. He is a most estimable gentleman. Betsey, another 
daughter, married Grigsby Lewis. 

John Miller, Sr., resided in Bath County, Virginia, until he re- 
moved to Lick Creek. When he came his only means of transpor- 
tation was in a "Yankee jumper," a kind of sled made with the 
shaft and runner all of one pole. He came across the Patterson 
Mountain, down and over the Sugar Knob and onto Slater's Creek, 
and down that creek, where he located, bringing with him his wife 
and one child, then born, Henry Patrick. The first thing he did was 
to go to the Alderson's place a mile above and borrow a mattock to 
begin operations with, dig out a foundation for his cabin, and 
"grub" a corn patch and locate his claim. He was an accomplished 
carpenter and cabinet maker. 

Thomas Miller, a son of Henry Patrick Miller, went to Cali- 
fornia during the golden era of '49 in search of the yellow metal, 
but never returned, and was lost sight of entirely. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



393 



Robert Miller, who married Anky Alderson, a daughter of James 
Alderson, and emigrated to Indiana and settled in Morgan County, 
left Robert, Alexander, Oliver and John, sons, and Martha, who 
married Newton Sandey, of Paragon, Morgan County, Indiana. 
Other children of Robert and Anky Miller were Robert, Oliver, John 
and Alexander, now residing in that State, except Robert and 
Oliver, who are dead. 

The wife of the infamous Judge Harrison who reigned so 
viciously over the courts and the people of this section directly 
after the war, was a daughter of William Erskine, the founder of 
the Salt Sulphur Springs. After her separation from him she lived 
in New Orleans, where their daughter, "Skippy" Harrison, mar- 
ried and now resides. 

JOHN MILLER'S WILL. 

I, John Miller, of the county of Greenbrier and State of Vir- 
ginia, do make this my last will and testament in the manner and 
form following, that is to say : 

Second. I wish my funeral expenses and all my just debts to 
be paid out of my personal property after my decease. 

Third. I gave to my son, Henry Miller, a tract of one hundred 
acres, joining to my home place, that I bought back from him again, 
that my son, Ervin B. Miller, now lives on, which I intend for his 
part of my estate. 

Fourth. I leave to my son, James H. Miller, one hundred dol- 
lars, to be paid by my sons, Andrew A. Miller and William E. 
Miller, two years after my decease. 

Fifth. I leave to my son, Robert Miller, one hundred dollars, 
to be paid to him at my decease by my sons, Andrew A. Miller and 
William E. Miller. 

Sixth. The hundred acres of land I bought from my son, Henry 
P. Miller, which the write — was made to my son, Ervin B. Miller, 
lives on, and I intend for his part of my estate. 

Seventh. I leave to my sons, Andrew A. Miller and William E. 
Miller, my plantation on which I now live, to be as equally divided 
according to quantity and quality between my sons, Andrew A. 
Miller and William E. Miller, and if- they can'-t agree about the 
divide, it is to be divided by disinterested persons, and I further 
leave all my personal estate of whatsoever kind I may have at my 
decease to the above-named A. A. Miller and W. E. Miller, to be 
equally divided between them, with the exception of what will be 



394 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



hereafter named, and after the above-named partition is divided 
and property my son, A. A. Miller, is to have choice. 

Eighth. I leave to my grandson, James R. Hill, one horse worth 
fifty or sixty dollars, and saddle and bridal, to be payed by my 
sons, Andrew A. Miller and William E. Miller, at my decease, which 
is to be his part of my estate. 

Ninth. I leave to my daughter, Mary Ann McNeer, my black 
man, Abram, and my black woman, Sarah, if they outlive myself, 
and I intend them to be her part of my estate. 

Tenth. I leave to my daughter, Margaret Elizabeth McNeer, 
my black woman, Minty, if she should outlive myself, and I intend 
that to be her part of my estate. 

And lastly, I wish no administration of my estate further than 
what I have left it to take possession of what I have left them, 
hereby revoking all former wills or testaments by me made. 

In witness whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and affixed 
my seal this third day of July, 1846. 

JOHN MILLER. 

A codicil to the last will and testament of John Miller, bearing 
date the third day of July, 1846; that is to say, I now wilLand be- 
queath to my son, William E. Miller, all my house and kitchen fur- 
niture, farming utensils and stock of sheep, and also my watch, 
given under my hand the twenty-fifth day of September. 1854. 

(This will seems to have been written by John Miller himself 
in his own hand.) 

Charles Lewis Miller is the oldest of the sons of William Ers- 
kine Miller. He was born on Lick Creek on the 13th day of May, 
1852. He was educated in the public schools and at Oberlin Col- 
lege, Ohio ; taught school a number of years, learned telegraphy, 
and became a proficient operator, but never followed the business. 
He afterwards became agent for the C. & O. Railroad Company at 
Gauley Bridge, which position he held for ten years. Later, he 
located at the mouth of the Greenbrier River, where he has been 
engaged in farming, merchandising and other enterprises. He was 
never married. He was the projector, and constructed the steel 
bridge over the Greenbrier River at Foss. He built the first silo 
ever built in Summers County, which was a successful experiment. 
He is an up-to-date, modern farmer, and is connected with a num- 
ber of the business enterprises of the country. He is a stockholder 
in the Bank of Raleigh, 'New River Milling Company, Hinton Hard- 
ware Company and other local corporations. He was at one time 



HISTORY" OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



395 



deputy clerk of the County Court of Summers County, which po- 
sition he held until his resignation. He has been repeatedly re- 
quested to run for public office, including that of county clerk, 
sheriff and other positions, but has always firmly declined. 

Anderson Embury Miller was the third son of W. E. Miller; 
was born on the 1st day of October, 1859. He was raised on the 
farm and educated in the public schools, and has engaged in the 
mercantile business for a number of years. He was one of the pro- 
moters and founders of the New River Grocery Company, of which 
he has been general manager since its organization se\~eral years 
ago: is one of the principal stockholders in the Foss Bridge Com- 
pany, and he and C. L. Miller own together that valuable property 
at Foss, part of the old William Pack plantation and ferry. He 
has never sought political preferment or been a candidate for any 
office. He is a stockholder in the Bank of Gauley; was one of the 
founders of the Bank of Raleigh, of which he was the first cashier, 
and with which he was connected for several years, until his resig- 
nation on account of his health. He is a large stockholder in The 
Lilly Lumber Company, and numerous other local business enter- 
prises. His children are Owen E.. Harry L.. Fare, Josephine and 
Barbara Hutchinson. He was married to Jennie Irene Hutchinson 
June 22, 1887. 

The Oscar L. Morris mentioned in these pages, who married 
Annie Miller, is a direct descendant of the ancient settler, who was 
associated with Daniel Boone in the early settlement of the Kana- 
wha Valley for twelve years, and the name was then spelled "Mor- 
riss," as seen in the pioneer prints. 

JAMES HENRY MILLER, 

The second son of William E. Miller and the fourth of the genera- 
tion of James H. Miller, was raised on the farm, and attended 
school with the neighborhood boys and girls in the old Gum School- 
house on Lick Creek, a celebrated place of learning in the early 
times. He was a student of James Huston Miller at Green Sulphur 
Springs in 1876 ; graduated in the class of '79 at Concord Normal, 
taking the two prizes contested for. one adjudged to him for the 
best original oration, ''The Wrecks of Time" ; the other for the best 
essay delivered at the commencement of that term, "The Ideals of 
a True Life." He taught school for thirty months ; four terms in 
Hinton. at Green Sulphur, on top of Hump Mountain, at Xew 
Richmond and White Sulphur Springs. He began the study of 



396 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



law with Hon. William Withers Adams at Hinton, writing in the 
clerk's office to pay expenses, and rooming in the jury room at the 
court house ; took a law course at the University of Virginia ; was 
admitted to the practice at the February Term, 1881. Soon after he 
formed a co-partnership with the late Elbert Fowler, which ter- 
minated with his death two and one-half years afterward, where- 
upon he formed a co-partnership w^ith his old preceptor, W. W. 
Adams, which continued until his death in 1894, after which the 
partnership of Miller & Read was formed, which continued until 
the 1st of December, 1904. During the time from 1881 to 1905 he 
practiced his profession in Summers County, occasionally taking 
business in the adjoining counties of Monroe and Greenbrier. In 
1884 he was elected Prosecuting^ Attorney of Summers County, 
which office he held for sixteen years in succession, when he de- 
clined to again be a candidate for that position, but was nominated 
in 1900 for the office of State Auditor on the Democratic ticket, and 
was defeated, with the rest of his party ticket, by Hon. Arnold 
Scherr, the present accomplished Auditor, of West Virginia. In 
1904 he was nominated without opposition to the office of judge of 
the Circuit Court of the Ninth AVest Virginia Circuit, composed of 
Summers, Raleigh and Wyoming, and was elected by about 1,200 
majority in a Republican circuit over his opponent, Hon. Frank 
Lively, of Summers County, which position he now holds. He was 
unanimously selected as a delegate to the Chicago Convention of 
1896, which nominated William J. Bryan for President and Arthur 
Sewall for Vice-President. He was not an original Bryan man, 
for Bryan was then practically unknown as a statesman, orator and 
patriot; but voted on two ballots for J. C. S. Blackburn, of Ken- 
tucky, and then for Bland. Up until his election as judge, when he 
retired from politics, he was a delegate to each State convention 
of his party for the last twenty-five years, as well as to the Sena- 
torial and Congressional conventions of his district, the Third West 
Virginia, and was Chairman of the Democratic Congressional Com- 
mittee for the Third West Virginia District for some sixteen years, 
resigning in 1900, when he became a candidate for auditor, and in 
the campaign of that year he was selected unanimously as Chair- 
man of the State Democratic Committee for West Virginia, and 
conducted that- campaign, with headquarters at Charleston, his 
assistants being Hon. W. E. R. Burns, John T. McGraw, Hon. 
Thomas B. Davis, Wm. E. Chilton and others. This was in the cam- 
paign of 1900, and which position he held until 1904, his term in 
that office being resigned upon his nomination for the judgeship. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 397 



Others associated with him at headquarters were W. H. Garnett, 
C. C. Campbell and Frank A. Manning, of Summers County. He 
was Chairman for the Senatorial convention which nominated 
Hon. William Haynes for the State Senate, also which nominated 
John W. Arbuckle. 

On February 1, 1882, he was married to Jane Tompkins Miller, 
a daughter of James H. Miller, Jr., of Gauley Bridge. They have 
four children, James H., Jr., now a student at Randolph-Macon 
Academy; Grace Chapman, Jean and Daisy Corinne. He has been 
connected with a number of business enterprises in this section. He 
is president of the Greenbrier Springs Company, a director of the 
National Bank of Summers from its organization, president of The 
Hinton Hardware Company, stockholder in the Ewart-Miller Com- 
pany, and others. 

It was he and R. R. Flanagan who first projected a bridge across 
New River at Hinton, on the site afterwards occupied by the Hin- 
ton Toll Bridge Company. It was some ten years prior to the 
erection of the bridge, and they determined that the patronage at 
that time and population was not sufficient to justify the business 
investment, and it was abandoned for the time, and afterwards 
taken up by enterprising citizens and carried to a successful ter- 
mination. 

He first adopted the profession of medicine and studied for that 
profession for some time under the celebrated Dr. Samuel Wil- 
liams, at New Richmond, but abandoned it for the law by reason 
of being unable financially to take the medical course required in 
that profession before entering the practice of the medical pro- 
fession. 

GEORGE A. MILLER. 

The second son of Captain A. A. Miller is George Andrew, born 
on the 10th day of January, 1857, on Lick Creek, on the old 
Miller plantation, within fifty feet of where the Indians hid the 
night after they killed Griffith on Griffith's Creek, the last Indian 
incursion into this region of the country. (Griffith's Creek bore 
that name in 1777 at the date of the formation of Greenbrier County, 
and is named in the act of the General Assembly of Virginia, cre- 
ating that county,, therefore the Griffiths must have settled in that 
region some time before that date.) George A. Miller was reared 
on the farm, attended the free schools at the Old Gum Schoolhouse, 
where so many of the youths of that day received their education ; 
also Lyle's Academy on Second Creek in Monroe County. At his 
majority he entered the mercantile business at Alderson with L. E. 



398 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Johnson, now president of the Greenbrier Valley Bank, and George 
K. Gwinn, a son of Augustus Gwinn, now engaged in the hardware 
business in that town. The firm name was Johnson, Gwinn & Co., 
in which he retained an interest for some years. Later he traveled 
for a number of years for the old shoe house of Wingo, Ellett & 
Crump, retaining, however, his citizenship through all these years 
on Lick Creek. He married, in 1906, Miss Minnie Gwinn, a daugh- 
ter of J. Clark Gwinn and a granddaughter of Augustus Gwinn, 
heretofore referred to. He is largely identified with many of the 
principal business enterprises in this section; engaged as a coal 
operator, president of the New River. Grocery Co., director in the 
Greenbrier Valley Bank, engaged in the drug business at Ron- 
ceverte with his nephew, P. A. George, under the firm name of 
P. A. George & Co., and is one of the capitalists of this section. 
He is also a large stockholder in the National Bank of Waxahachie, 
Texas, of which his brother, James Houston 'Miller, is president. 
His mother was a Hinchman, a descendant of the old English set- 
tlers near Lowell. He is an astute and honorable business man, 
energetic, skillful and reliable. His wife is an accomplished sten- 
ographer, and has rendered material aid in the preparation of this 
work. 

So far as I am able to state, Robert Miller was the emigrant who 
founded the generation of Millers of which we have undertaken to 
give some history. Then came Patrick Miller; then John and Rob- 
ert, who settled on Lick Creek, half brothers. John married Jane 
Hodge, of Highland County, Virginia, and his oldest son, Henry, 
was born before emigrating to Lick Creek. The others of his 
children were born on that creek. James Hodge Miller was named 
for his mother. Robert, the son of John, was named for his half- 
uncle, Robert, who settled at the Thomas A. George place. Andrew 
Alexander was named after John Alexander, who married Robert 
Miller's daughter. Irvin Benson was named after Washington Ir- 
ving, and Benson, a collateral ancestor. William Erskine Miller was 
named for a collateral ancestor, William Erskine, who founded the 
Salt Sulphur Springs. James William, the son of Irvin, was named 
for his uncle William and his uncle James. John Alexander, the 
son of Irvin, was named for his grandfather, John and his uncle, 
A. A. Olen Benson was named for his father, Irvin Benson. 
Charles Lewis was named after General Charles Lewis. A. E. 
Miller was named for Major Anderson A. McNeer and Bishop Em- 
berry, of the Methodist Church. Mary Benson Miller was named 
for her Aunt Mary and the old ancestral name, Benson. James 
Henry was named for his uncle and cousin at Gauley Bridge. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 399 



George A. was named for the ancient Georges and his father, Cap- 
tain A. A. Miler. James Houston Miller was named for his Uncle 
James at Gauley Bridge and General Sam Houston, the Texas 
patriot. Elizabeth Benson Miller, who married John George, was 
named for the Benson family. Fenton Hodge after his great-great 
maternal grandfather and Fenton Morris. Robert Hamilton after 
has great-uncle, Robert, of Indiana, and Hamilton, one of the col- 
lateral ancestral names, of w r hich Jacob Hamilton, of Blue Sulphur 
Springs was a descendant. William Alexander was named after 
his uncle, William Erskine Miller, and Captain A. A. Miller. Jean 
Miller is a family name from the foundation from the paternal side. 

Among the old papers of James Hodge Miller, the ancient post- 
master at Gauley Bridge, the following relic was found : 

5832 Pounds 12-9. No. 1369. , 

August 11, 1777. 
Three years after date pay to the order of James Hodge the 
above mentioned pounds, good and lawful money of Virginia, for 
value received, issued by order of the Governor. 

GEORGE BLUNT. 

This note seems never to have been collected. We also insert 
a copy of an ancient fee-bill as follows : 

James H. Miller. 

To the Commissioner of the Revenue, Fayette County, entering 
transfer from William Morris, 75c. 

W. C. CAMPBELL, C. R. F. C. 

Mr. James H. Miller. 

To the Clerk of Fayette County, Debtor. 
1834, November. Fees in suit against James River Company, 
$1.76. Teste: H. HILL, C. F. C. 

Thomas Ferry, whose mother was a daughter of Robert Miller, 
the settler, in 1850 went to California in search of gold. He ac- 
quired lands in the Sacramento regions and mined and prospected 
for gold in the mountains, spending a large part of his life in the 
fascinating life of a gold miner. He was a bachelor and never 
married, and the only child and heir of his parents who settled in 
Missouri, and was therefore one of the heirs to the large estate of 
his uncles, John and Alex. Miller, who were bachelors and never 
married. Nothing was heard of Ferry for many years. The estates 
had been settled through the courts at Lewisburg, and all the funds 
distributed, except the interest, which fell to Ferry, and all efforts 



400 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



made to find him had failed. Finally, some fifteen years ago, before 
distributing his part to the other heirs, Hon. M. Gwinn, who was 
settling up the estates, determined to make one further effort, and 
inserted a last advertisement in a California newspaper. Ferry was 
in the Rocky Mountains prospecting, with a party of miners, and 
one of the party went to the settlement for supplies, which he 
secured and had wrapped up in newspapers. These papers Ferry 
preserved to read, and in doing so, ran across Gwinn'' s little adver- 
tisement wanting information of Thomas Ferry. At once he be- 
lieved himself to be the man. He wrote Gwinn ; they got into 
communication, and he came on to Green Sulphur Springs ; had 
no trouble in proving his identity and in claiming and receiving his 
own, which was a considerable sum. He has remained on Lick 
Creek since, and is now an old man. 

Thomas Miller, a bachelor, a son of Henry P. Miller, went to 
California as a forty-niner, and was heard of for some time as a 
successful miner for gold, but was finally lost sight of, and dis- 
appeared. 

Robert Miller, the third son of John, the settler, long before the 
war removed to Hancock County, Indiana, returned to Virginia and 
again removed to Morgan County, Indiana, and settled on a farm 
near Martinsville, where he raised a family and died at an old age. 
His sons, John, Robert, Oliver and Alex., resided in that country. 
Robert was a soldier in the Federal Army and died from the ex- 
posure of a soldier. One of his daughters married Newton Sandey, 
who is a prosperous farmer near Greenfield. 

JOHN B. GARBEY. 

John B. Garbey was born on the 6th of November, 1837, in 
Frederick County, Maryland. His father, Bartholomew B. Garbey, 
and his mother, Helen Ferriter, were both natives of Ireland, and 
emigrated to America from Kerry County. He was engaged in 
the public works in different parts of the country— in Massachu- 
setts, Vermont, and finally located at Staunton, Virginia, and from 
thence removed to Pocahontas County, West Virginia. John B. 
came to Summers County in 1877. He has been prominent in the 
affairs of the county ; was a soldier in the United States Army dur- 
ing the Civil War ; was a courier for General Scammon, and was 
captured in Greenbrier County by McCausland's men under Colonel 
Edgar; carried to the Pickaway Plains; thence confined to Belle 
Isle, Andersonville, Savannah, and other Southern prisons, for 



JAMES H. MILLER, 
1900. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 401 



fifteen months in all, and was finally exchanged. He is a devout 
Catholic in his religious beliefs and a Republican in his politics. 
He was one of the first notaries public commissioned in the county; 
has been frequently the nominee of his party for local office, and is 
now the Secretary of the Board of Education of Talcott District, i 
elected'to that position for the third term by a Democratic board, 
which goes to prove his efficiency and fidelity as an officer. His 
sons are B. B., John E., Dan G., who was killed by the C. & O. 
Railroad, and Michael A. His daughters are Mary G., who mar- 
ried Captain Meredith, of the C. & O. Railroad; Maggie J., Rosa 
F., Rebecca F. and Elizabeth. 

He settled on and owns lands at the Pence Springs. He is one 
of the intelligent and enterprising Irish citizens of his section. 

MEADOWS. 

This is one of the largest families in the county, and the con- 
nection is scattered throughout Raleigh, Mercer and adjoining 
counties. The original name was "Meadows," but many of the 
descendants are now "Meador," but the original ancestor of all 
the Meadows and Meadors are the same : Josiah and Jacob Mead- 
ows, two of a family who came to this region after the surrender 
of Lord Cornwallis at Yorktown, Virginia. They came about 1780 
— between that date and 1785. Jacob came from Rockingham 
County from the same settlement as John and Christian Peters, 
who came in 1782. Judge Johnston, in his "New River Settlements," 
says he filed a claim for a pension in the County Court of Giles 
County in 1832, and that he therein states that his first enlistment 
was for three months under Captain Coker, in Colonel Wall's Regi- 
ment. During his three months' service he skirmished with the 
British around Norfolk and Portsmouth. The last three months 
he served as a substitute for Adam Hansberger, and served in the 
Battle of Yorktown, in LaFayette's Corps. John Peters swears 
that he saw him at Yorktown serving as a soldier. He settled on 
Lower East River. The other was Josiah Meadows, and he came 
from the county of Bedford. He was also a soldier in the Conti- 
nental armies for two or more periods, a part of the time against 
the Indians and in the American Army against the British. He 
enlisted in 1778, under Captain Joseph Henfoe. He marched with 
him to Jarrett's Fort, in Wolf Creek, now Monroe County, and 
from there to Keeney's Fort, on the Greenbrier River below Alder- 
son. After the expiration of this enlistment he again enlisted with 



402 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Captain Isaac Taylor, Colonel James Montgomery's Regiment, and 
served in the Holstein country, and then into the Illinois country, 
under George Rogers Clark. After that he was with the American 
Army at Yorktown in charge of the British prisoners captured there. 
He was a fighting missionary Baptist minister, locating on Blue- 
stone River, at the mouth of Little Bluestone, and among his sons 
were Josiah and John Meadows. From this Josiah, the soldier- 
preacher, has descended the large family in this region. Later came 
Meador. The Meador or Meadows and Lilly families became 
closely allied by marriage, Robert being the founder of that family, 
first settling at East River, and later in what is now Jumping 
Branch District, on the farm owned and on which Joseph Lilly 
(Curly Joe) lived at his death in 1906. Robert, the founder, was 
a justice in Mercer County. 

Josiah Meadows, the soldier, was the grandfather of Hon. 
Rufus G. M. Meador, of Athens, and John Calvin Meador, who 
recently died in this * country. He was the great-grandfather of 
Joseph M. Meador, clerk of the County Court of Summers, and 
the grandfather of the Rev. John J. Meador, Green M. Meador, 
the merchant-minister, of Jumping Branch, of the firm of Meador 
& Deeds, who married his partner's daughter (C. B. Deeds), also 
of Larkin McDowell Meador, the merchant who died in 1889 at 
True, while deputy sheriff for Sheriff O. T. Kessler ; as well as of 
Mrs. B. P. Shumate, and is the ancestor of many other prominent 
and valuable citizens, including William T. Meador, the first presi- 
dent of the county court, elected under the amended Constitution 
about 1874, and James E. Meadows, the present mayor of Avis, a 
prominent citizen, once a justice of the peace by election for a 
term of four years, and the Republican nominee for commissioner 
of the county court, and the father of A. G. Meador, the assistant 
postmaster of Hinton and mayor of Avis for three terms by election. 

In 1778, Josiah Meadows referred to, was with George Rogers 
Clark, the Virginia explorer, on his expedition into the Illinois 
country, ivho marched back by way of the Falls of the Ohio River, 
this then all being in a Virginia county. 

In October, 1778, the Legislature of Virginia created and 
erected the county of Illinois, which included all of the Northwest 
territory north of the Ohio, south of the great lakes and east of 
the Mississippi. The county of Illinois continued as a Virginia 
county until its session of March, 1784. Kentucky County re- 
mained a distinct county of Virginia until its organization into a 
State. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 403 



MEADOR. 

There is some difference as to the origin of the families and 
their names and the source of ancestry, and it is claimed that they 
are an entirely distinct and separate ancestry, and had separate 
family beginnings, which is probably true. 

Josiah Meador was the father of Squire William Meador, and 
was probably the first of the name within our territory. Allen H. 
Meador, the first elected circuit clerk, six years ; a commissioner 
of the county court six years ; a justice of the peace of Jumping 
Branch four years; Larkin McD. Meador, the merchant at the 
mouth of Bluestone, and was expected to be the owner of a "sang 
hoe" to complete his outfit. It was not unusual for a farmer to 
kill three deer in those days before breakfast. 

The Meadors were among the earliest settlers of the Bluestone 
and Jumping Branch region. It is one of the largest family con- 
nections in the country. It has frequently been remarked that if 
a candidate for office had the support of the Lilly and Meador 
families, he was sure of election. Both being among the earliest 
settlers, the families largely intermarried, and were closely allied 
by affinity, as well as by a consanguinity. Both families have to 
the present day and are now largely represented in the annals 
of political and official history of the county. Probably the first 
settler by the name of Meador within our territory was Josiah 
Meador. Juda Lilly was the name of Josiah's wife, and after 
his death married John Woodrum, who was the father of Major 
Richard Woodrum; Harrison Woodrum, Green and Hugh were his 
sons, and Judith their daughter. They were all farmers and hunt- 
ers. A considerable amount of their time was devoted to "sanging," 
and farming. The first location was at the mouth of Little Blue- 
stone, on which plantation is located the oldest cemetery known in 
the county. 

There have been many men of local note of that name. There 
was John J. Meador, the Baptist minister, the father of "Little 
Joe," our present courteous county clerk; Green F. Meador, the 
merchant, of Meador & Deeds, of Jumping Branch, who is also 
a minister of the missionary Baptist Church, and who was a 
deputy sheriff under O. T. Kessler, elected in 1888, but who died 
soon after the election; D. Morgan Meador, the merchant and 
lumberman of Hinton ; his brother, LaFayette Meador, for a num- 
ber of years a general merchant in Hinton, now a citizen of Vir- 



404 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ginia; Hon. B. P. Shumate's first wife was a sister of Squire Allen 
Meador; William T. Meador, the first elected president of the 
county court; E. B. Meador, the pioneer merchant at the mouth of 
Greenbrier, and whose wife was a daughter of Rev. Rufus Pack. 
William T. Meador married a daughter of Ephraim J. Gwinn ; 
William Meador also, who lives on a part of the Charles Clark 
place at the mouth of Bluestone. 

The Meadors are numerous and scattered throughout this sec- 
tion of the State, all springing from the common source. Hon. 
Rufus Meador, of Athens ; Calvin Meador, a schoolteacher of this 
county; Beecher Meador, now of Little Bluestone, and Hon. Isa- 
dore Meador, clerk of the County Court of Raleigh County ; Marion 
Meador, the merchant of Hinton ; Squire George Meador, of Rich- 
mond District in Raleigh County, and others prominent in the 
affairs of the county. 

JOSEPH M. MEADOR. 

At the date of the preparation of this sketch the subject thereof 
is spending the winter in Florida with his wife and children (the 
former being afflicted with pulmonary trouble), with the view of 
securing relief for her. Mr. Meador has taken up a temporary 
abode in the "Sunny South." He is known and loved all over 
Summers County as "J. Roy Midwinter," the poet of Summers, 
being endowed with considerable of the poet's genius. 

He was born in this county on the 27th day of March, 1866, and 
is the son of the Rev. John J. Meador, and is one of the numerous 
families of the name of Meador of this and adjoining counties. On 
the 15th day of October, 1890, he was married to Mattie L. Burch, 
of Athens, in Mercer County, and of which union there has been 
born five children of the following names : Julius C, Aubrey P., Roy 
H., John G. and Florentine. He obtained his education by attend- 
ing the free schools of Pipestem District and the Concord Normal 
School of Athens, at which place he took the normal course at the 
session of 1888. His father being a Baptist minister, his financial 
resources, as is usual with these patriotic people, were limited. The 
usual experience of ministers' sons in this section is, that they have 
to look out for themselves after their majority, and are not born 
with the silver spoon in their mouths, and "Little Joe," as he is 
familiarly known throughout the county, was not an exception ; 
and, to use his own expression, he started out early "to root hog 
or die." 

While a youth he began teaching in the free schools for the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 405 



purpose of obtaining funds with which to secure a higher educa- 
tion, teaching one session the Old Red Springs school., at John K. 
Withrow's house on the Red Springs Branch of Lick Creek, and 
at other different places in the county. During his attendance at 
the normal school he made the acquaintance of his future wife, 
Mattie L. Burch. After leaving the normal school he entered into 
the mercantile business as a partner with his uncle. B. P. Shumate, 
at the old Shumate stand, at the mouth of Lick Creek on New 
River, in Pipestem District, known as Salt Works, at which place 
he remained a number of years, having the entire control and 
conduct of the business affairs of the co-partnership, which was 
operated under the name of B. P. Shumate & Company, Captain 
Shumate only giving him some general supervisory aid. of which 
he was very capable by reason of his many years' experience as a 
pioneer merchant in that part of the country, as was his father, 
the late Anderson Shumate, before him. 

Y\ nen Captain J. M. Ayres became a candidate for the Demo- 
cratic nomination for clerk of the county court, he secured "Little 
Joe" Meador as his deputy, they making the race together, Mr. 
Meador to have an equal interest in the profits and proceeds of the 
office. Captain Ayres being successful at the election of 1896, 
he entered upon the duties of deputy clerk on the first day of Janu- 
ary, 1897, serving throughout the full term of six years as deputy 
clerk of the county court, performing all the duties thereof with 
extraordinary diligence, care and correctness. At the expiration of 
the term he became a candidate for the position himself. Captain 
J. M. Ayres and Jake A. Rifle being his opponents for the nomina- 
tion. A lively contest ensued between the three candidates at the 
primary election, out of which Mr. Meador emerged with a hand- 
some majority. At the election following, in 1902, he was elected 
over Erastus H. Peck, his Republican opponent, by a majority of 
393. In this race J. M. Carden ran with him as deputy, occupying 
the same position with Mr. Meador as Mr. Meador occupied with 
Captain Ayres, he having served three years of his term. After 
the election of Captain Ayres in 1897, Mr. Meador, with his family, 
removed to Hinton, purchasing property, which he still owns, and 
m which he makes his home. 

He is an exceedingly polite, conscientious and gentlemanly of- 
ficial, having the respect of the public of both political parties. He 
grew up in the company of boys like himself, wholesome, honest, 
self-respecting, Avho looked down upon nobody, and his advance- 
ment has not made him, to use a common expression, "stuck-up." 
His parents were sober. God-fearing people, intelligent and upright, 



406 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



without pretension and without humility. "Little Joe" Meador is 
a self-made man, and is not ashamed of the job. Early in his young 
manhood he began writing verses, and still at his leisure time de- 
votes himself to that pleasant occupation. We have taken the 
liberty of reproducing, at random, from some of his productions. 

The following lines are based upon a conservation had with Mrs. 
Wilson one Sunday afternoon at the home of her son-in-law, the 
late J. J. Charlton, and were written especially for "The Inde- 
pendent-Herald" : * 

I was in your city ; 'twas long ago, 

And a noble forest broke on my view ; 

The grand New River was bright and clear, 

And we crossed it's tide in an old canoe. 

Beside this craft did our noble horse 

Swim safely across ; no boatman's oar 

As then had dipped in its crystal wave 

W 'here the city of Hinton now marks the shore. 

Yes, that was three-score years ago, 

And I a young woman in my prime ; 

But then, as now, what the future held 

Was hidden away in the chest of time. 

We were hunting a home, my husband and I, 

Where hopes would bud and open to bloom ; 

But the woof we weave in the warp of life 

Is never woven in fancy's loom. 

.We judge of the future, 'tis said, by the past; 
What wonderful things are then in store 
For those who will seek them, rememb'ring this; 
The costliest pearls are not found ashore! 
And what of the three-score years to come? 
With the marks of a century creasing your brow? 
Perhaps you will tell of the strange, strange past, 
As I'm telling you of the strange past now. 

Yes, what of the three-score years to come? 
Your city is but an infant still, 
But her pulse is strong and her courage grand, 
And ere then she may reach from hill to hill ; 
For they tell me now soon an arch of steel 
Will span the river — a bridge in lieu 
Of the mode of crossing long, long ago, 
When we swam the horse by the old canoe. 



* This lady, at the time of the conversation above referred to, 
was over ninety years of age, and has since visited relatives in the 
city of Hinton, and, I am creditably informed, is still living. 



\ 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 407 

WE MAY NOT UNDERSTAND. 
(Written for "The Dispatch," Richmond, Va.) 

In others oft we but behold 
The quartz, nor seek to find the gold ; 
Each serves its purpose. Night and day 
Shall each chase each, like boys at play, 

Through cycles yet untold. 

Let's weigh their faults as if our own ; 
The brighest flowers are ofttimes grown 
In thorny wilds, and gems of worth 
Oft taken from the depths of' earth, 

'Midst worthless pebbles strown. 

The dews that glitter on the flowers 
Are but the tears of midnight hours, 
And oft the very pangs of grief 
Bring to the heart a sweet relief ; 

Oft sunshine gilds the showers. 

• Deep treasured in the heart of man 
There lies a view we may not scan ; 
""here dwells a hope serenely sweet 
Where tide of earth and heaven meet 
We may not understand. 

/. Roy Midwinter. 

ADMONITORY. ' 

(Written for "The Republic," St. Louis, Mo.) 

My son, if in thy song is sadness, sing it not ; 
Each mountain hath its echo, and each grot 
Some slumbering sadness of its own doth keep; 
Let not thy words arouse it from its sleep. 
Turn not thy key unto the crypt of years, 
Nor tell us of the rankling of thy fears : 
Enough to know the past its sorrow holds, 
Enough to know what time to time unfolds. 

But, if thy song be gladness, let it fill 
The valley with its music ; let the hill 
Echo and re-echo back its joyous notes 
Until responsive wells from other throats 
Gladness alike to thine. As leafy trees 
Nod to the summer's gently rustling breeze, 
So do our hearts respond to joy's strain. 
E'en though they bear of sorrow oft the stain. 

/. Roy- Midwinter. 



408 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



TO MY SOUL. 

(Written for "The Republic," St. Louis, Mo.) 

Be still, my soul; spurn not this house of clay 
That seeming hides thee from the light of day, 
But temper it unto thy Master's will, 
And let thy warmth its every chamber fill 
Of this, thy dark abode, and may thy care 
Attend me in the silent hour of prayer. 

Know thou this earthly mold is legal heir 

To vales .of hope with castles of despair, 

Where sorrow, in his might, grim war doth wage 

Alike upon the peasant and the sage ; 

Forsaking not, attend me in the strife, 

Thou better being of the inner life. 

And when these hands would grasp some sin-bought prize, 

Be thou a veil before these mortal eyes; 

Kindle upon the altar of my heart 

A flame of love that may become a part 

Of every act of mine, to make life's whole 

A dwelling-place more meet for thee, my soul. 

So when the shadows from the twilight hill 
Fall o'er life's vale, and ev-ning's gath'ring chill 
Bespeaks the gloom of the approaching night, 
That thou mayest know, within the morning bright, 
Thine eyes, my soul, shall hail a fairer day 
Than ever kissed the dews from rose of May. 

/. Roy Midwinter. 

The foregoing quotations were selected at random from the nu- 
merous poetical compositions of Mr. Meador, who sometimes wrote 
as J. Roy Midwinter, and other noms de plume. 

The first tradition of the Meador or Meadows family is that the 
original ancestor came from England and settled in Baltimore 
City, and his son came into the Bluestone region. This Meador 
who settled in Baltimore had seven sons, and named them all, 
beginning with "J," and they were known as the "7J family." 

A. G. MEADOWS. 

A. G. Meadows, the present mayor of the city of Hinton, was 
born on the 12th day of May, 1865, and is the son of James E. 
Meadows. He was educated in the common schools of this county 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 409 



and the Concord Normal at Athens, West Virginia. In 1889, he was 
united in marriage with Miss Nannie Anderson, of Greenbrier 
County ; is a Republican in politics, identified with the organization 
of the count)', and as such was first elected mayor of the city of Avis 
in the year 1903; re-elected in 1904 and 1905, being the regular 
nominee of his party. In 1906 he declined further nomination, and 
his father, James E. Meadows was elected as his successor, the 
term of office being twelve months. The administration of Mayor 
Meadows, both father and son, have been fair and intelligent and 
to the general satisfaction of their constituents. Early in the ad- 
ministraton of Hon. Sira W. Willey as postmaster of Hinton, he 
appointed him as his assistant in that office, which position he has 
well filled for ten years. Mr. Meadows has a large relationship 
through the county. His father, James E. Meadows, has held the 
office of justice of the peace for four years by election ; has been 
prominent in the councils of his party; was the Republican can- 
didate for commissioner of the county court in 1906. He married 
a daughter of the late Squire Joseph Grimmett. 

THE RICHMOND FAMILY. 

There are large settlements of people of this name in the coun- 
ties of Summers, Fayette and Raleigh. William Richmond was the 
founder of the Richmond family in this part of Virginia. He was 
an Englishman, and the family is of English descent. William 
Richmond, the founder of the settlement of that name throughout 
this region, although a native of England and an emigrant from 
that empire, fought through the War of 1812 in the American Army. 
At the close of that war, he emigrated from Norfolk, Virginia, and 
settled at New River Falls, in what is now Raleigh County, living 
there the remainder of his life. He died in the year 1850, at the 
age of ninety-eight years, leaving a family of six children, his 
-youngest son, Samuel, retaining the old homestead, including 'the 
lands now owned by W. R. Taylor, of Philadelphia, consisting of 
sixty acres, and including half of Richmond's Falls, sometimes 
known as New River Falls, the old Richmond grist-mill and the 
lands upon which Allen Richmond now lives, as well as the Rich- 
mond Ferry. From this William Richmond are directly descended 
all of the people of the Richmond name in this region of the State. 

■ Samuel Richmond was the youngest son of William. He was 
born on March 1, 1801, and died on September 12, 1863, leaving 
a family of eight boys and five girls, his two youngest sons, Allen 



410 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and "Tuck," as he is commonly known, and his widow retaining the 
old homestead, as above described. His fifth son, John A. Rich- 
mond,- located at the mouth of Lick Creek, where he lived all his 
life, having married Permelia S. Thomasson, of Raleigh County, 
John A. Richmond was a man of excellent natural sense and abil- 
ity, and was a man of fine personal appearance. His opportunities 
for education were limited, but he was a successful business man 
throughout his career. He was one of the first postmasters ap- 
pointed in that part of the country. He was appointed postmaster 
in April, 1856, by Fresident Buchanan, the name of the* post office 
at that time being Richmond's Falls, afterwards changed to New 
Richmond in 1871. He retained the office of postmaster without 
change until his death on March 1, 1901, at the age of sixty-eight 
years. His widow, Mrs. P. S. Richmond, succeeded him as post- 
mistress, and retains the office to this day. 

His business included a general merchandise business, from 
1870 until his death, and the business was continued by his widow 
until 1905, when her two sons, John W. and Fred., succeeded, 
and are now operating the business at New Richmond, at the mouth 
of Lick Creek. John A. Richmond was a man of strong person- 
ality, very true to his friends, and for his enemies he had no use. 
He was noted for his frankness, and was without deceit. If he 
disliked a person, that person was sure to know it, and he desired 
no transactions with him. If he was a friend, he was kind and 
considerate, although sometimes his manner was rough and un- 
couth to those he liked best. He adopted that method of showing 
his friendship. 

He left surviving him eight children, John W., who is now jus- 
tice of the peace of Green Sulphur District, elected on the Repub- 
lican ticket at the election of 1905 ; Samuel A., who noAV resides at 
Thurmond, in Fayette County, and who was elected and served 
as justice of the peace for two terms in that district on the Repub- 
lican ticket; Enfield, who is a railroad conductor, residing at Cov- 
ington, Ky. ; Fred., the youngest, who resides with his mother on 
the old Richmond homestead; Dr. B. B. Richmond, a graduate of 
the Louisville Medical College, now practicing his profession on 
Gauley River, and is a successful practitioner and surgeon. One 
of his daughters, Leona, married Robert FI. Miller, of Gauley 
Bridge, where they now reside ; another daughter, Martha, mar- 
ried John Nutty, a United States Government employee, residing in 
Louisville, Ky. ; another daughter, Kitty, married Chris. Rodecap, 
both of whom died several years ago. He was a railway locomotive 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY., WEST VIRGINIA. 



411 



engineer on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. Misses Ida and 
Laney reside with their mother at the old homestead, and Norma 
died, unmarried, some four years ago. 

Samuel Richmond, the father of John A. Richmond, was shot 
and killed in 1863. He was a Union man, and opposed to the sev- 
erance of the Union and the secession of the Southern States. With 
the Richmond characteristics, he left no doubt in the minds of the 
people as to his beliefs, but proclaimed them far and wide. Being 
over the age at which he could be required to serve in either of 
the armies, he remained at home, owning a large burrh hewed log 
grist-mill, located at the lower side of the falls, which was pat- 
ronized for many miles around, as it ran all the year, and the 
people on both sides of the river were enabled to have their grind- 
ing done at this mill when the water had dried up during the 
summer and fall months, and the other mills were out of commis- 
sion by reason of the low water and dry weather. 

The feeling was intense, and a great deal of bitterness had been 
engendered between the partisans of the Southern and Northern 
cause preceding and during the four years of the Civil War. Sam- 
uel Richmond, on the day of his death, ferried Allen Vincent across 
New River, from the Raleigh side. His wife insisted on his not 
crossing, fearful that some harm would result, but he disregarded 
her warning, went down to the ferry, some half mile below the 
residence, got into his canoe, ferried Mr. Vincent across to the 
Summers side, who landed, and as Mr. Richmond started to row 
back, he was shot at from ambush by two persons who were hid on 
the mountain side, the ball passing through Mr. Richmond's lungs. 
Being, however, a man of powerful determination and physique, 
he rowed his canoe back to the opposite side, where he was carried 
home, and died instantly from the result of the wound. The death 
of Mr. Richmond has been supposed to have been caused by Hen- 
derson Garten, who is mentioned in this history in another con- 
nection, and Jefferson Bennett, a warm secession advocate. 

The Falls of New River were named Richmond's Falls, and 
have borne that name for nearly 100 years, after the original settler. 
William Richmond. New Richmond Post Office was also named 
after this family. The C. & O. depot was known as New Rich- 
mond for many years, but has been within recent years changed to 
Sandstone, by reason of there being another depot of the same name 
on the road at the time of the extension of the road from Hunting- 
ton to Cincinnati, which required a change of the name of this 
depot. The Sandstone name was taken from the sandstone quarry 



412 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



at that place, where many of the foundations, piers, abutments and 
much of the building stone for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 
construction was secured, as well as much of the ballast made 
from crushed stone at that place. The stone used in the construc- 
tion of the large grain elevators at Newport News was taken there 
from this quarry, and also the stone was taken therefrom that was 
placed in the Washington Monument, secured through the enter- 
prise of Dr. Samuel Williams. 

The village of New Richmond was also named for John A. 
Richmond. James W. Richmond, another son of Samuel Rich- 
mond, died during the war. He resided near the Sandstone depot 
until his death, leaving several children and a widow, who died in 
recent years and who was a sister of Mrs. John A. Richmond. 
Wm. Richmond, another son of Samuel, lived and died on the fine 
bottom about a mile below the round-house at Hinton, on the 
Raleigh side. This is noted as one of the best small bottom farms 
in this section of the State. W m. Richmond secured it in his 
early days, built himself a residence and resided thereon until the 
date of his death, some seven or eight years ago. He was another 
noted character in this section, having been engaged actively during 
the Civil War on the Federal side. There are many adventures 
recorded of him, and he took the name during the war of "Devil 
Bill" Richmond. 

All of the Richmonds were noted for their powerful physical 
strength. This Wm. Richmond was the one with whom Evan 
Hinton had the famous fight, recorded elsewhere in these chron- 
icles. He was a member of the County Court of Raleigh County, 
a justice of the peace, and in the early history of the State a mem- 
ber of the Legislature from that county and a well-known character. 

Another son of Samuel Richmond, Samuel, resided for many 
years at the foot of Guyan Mountain, in Raleigh County, dying 
at a very advanced age in 1904, leaving a family of two sons and 
three daughters, who reside in that community. The late Wm. 
Richmond also left a number of sons — Marshall, Sam and John 
Richmond, residing on the old homestead below Hinton, and a 
number of daughters, one of whom married Thurmond Hinton, a 
resident of Hinton, a son of Evan Hinton ; another daughter mar- 
ried Samuel Ervin, also a resident of Hinton ; another son of Sam- 
uel Richmond — Marshal — removed in his youth to Iowa, and died 
a short time ago. He married a daughter of E. J. Gwinn, of Green 
Sulphur Springs, and a sister of ex-Sheriff H. Gwinn and Hon. 
M. Gwinn. Marshal Richmond, the son of James Richmond, died, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



413 



unmarried, some ten years ago at his uncle's, John A. Richmond. 
He was a young man noted for his generosity; he had traveled 
extensively through the West, but returned to his uncle's some 
time before his death. 

Samuel Richmond and his descendants were all Republicans in 
politics, were good citizens, people of strong personality, and fre- 
quently voted against their party candidates in local affairs, when 
the opposite party had candidates they deemed better qualified to 
administer the affairs of the county. This is especially true of 
John A. Richmond. 

Sixty acres of land, including the old Samuel Richmond mansion 
house, which was a large, two-story, hewed log house, and the old 
grist-mill, which was operated by water-power from the falls, in- 
cluding the Richmond side of the falls, was sold in 1871, by Allen 
Richmond, "Tuck" (whose correct name was "Alexander H."), and 
the widow of Samuel Richmond, to W. R. Taylor, a Philapelphia 
capitalist, who is still the owner. He paid therefor the sum of 
$15,000.00 in gold, but has never utilized the water-power or the 
property in any way, and has permitted the buildings to decay 
and fall into ruins. 

This Wm. R. Taylor was the same gentleman who, about 1874, 
or 1875, bought the old Cabell place in the Big Meadows, in Green- 
brier County, of two or three thousand acres, on which he erected 
a very large steam saw and grist-mill, with a church in the roof 
and a large, modern barn, filling' it with a fine stock of horses, and a 
large store building, and other improvements, irrigating the lands, 
and was a pioneer after the developments began in this country 
after the construction of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad. The build- 
ings were burned to the ground a few years afterwards ; first, the 
mill, then the barn, with the horses and other buildings, one at a 
time. It was supposed, and talked of as common gossip at the 
time, that the wife of Mr. Taylor did not desire to live in that 
region, and in order to induce Taylor to return to Philadelphia and 
take her back to that city, burned, or had burned, these buildings, 
one at a time, to discourage him. If this be true, for which we 
do not vouch, it seemed to have had the desired effect, for Mr. 
Taylor abandoned the country, sold the land, removed his family, 
and is still residing in the city of Philadelphia, never having made 
any improvements or utilizing the Richmond property in any man- 
ner, not even leasing the. farm. 

Samuel Richmond, at the date of his death, left surviving him 
a widow, Mrs. Sarah Richmond, who was Sarah Caperton before 



414 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



her marriage, closely related to Senator Allen Caperton, of Monroe 
County and the other Capertons *of that county. A daughter, Sallie, 
married Rufus Bragg, was the mother of Samuel P. Bragg, 
an enterprising merchant and citizen, now of Hinton, and a stock- 
holder and engaged in the managemet of the New River Grocery 
Compay, the wholesale establishment operated in Hinton. He 
married Esta B. Hutchinson, daughter of Michael and Mary Hutch- 
inson, of Elton. Another daughter was the wife of William Gwinn, 
the pioneer settler of Meadow Creek; another daughter married 
Samuel Bragg, now residing at Pear, Raleigh County, West Vir- 
ginia. 

The date of the shooting of Samuel Richmond, the senior, was 
September 11, 1863. This has always been understood as a cold- 
blooded and unprovoked murder, done in the heat of partisan 
passion, when the woods were full of bushwhackers on both sides, 
ready at any moment, when they believed the interests of their 
partisan sides demanded, to commit cruel, unnecessary and unpro- 
voked destruction of human life and of private citizen's property. 
Many depredations of that character were done during the strife of 
the Civil War, which went unpunished, and which would not be 
tolerated in times of peace. 

M. M. WARREN. 

Mathew Madison Warren is a native of Monroe County; was 
born on the 9th day of February, 1838, near Peterstown, and is 
the son of Curtis H. Warren. In the early settlement of the Amer- 
ican continent, two English cousins, named Uriah and Nathaniel 
Warren, took passage on a ship sailing from Liverpool to this 
country, and after a very stormy passage, including one shipwreck, 
in which they had to abandon their ship and take chances in an 
open boat on the open sea, after about eight days, almost without 
food and drink, were picked up by a Dutch ship, in almost a starv- 
ing condition, and were landed at Plymouth, Mass. Nathaniel 
Warren located in Massachusetts not far from where they made 
their landing, and from this source sprang a numerous progeny, 
and in all probability including the Gen. Joseph Warren, of Bunker 
Hill fame, and who was killed at that famous battle. All 
schoolboys who have read their country's history will remember 
the story and bra\*ery of Gen. Warren, and his death at the battle 
of Bunker Hill. 

Uriah Warren made his way to Virginia, and finally settled in 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 415 



the Valley of Virginia near what is now the town of Harrisonburg, 
and from him descended the Warren family of this region. The 
grandfather of M. M. Warren, Uriah Warren, was born in the year 
1777, and at the age of twenty-three he was married to Elizabeth 
Stevens, of German descent, and from best information, this Uriah 
Warren was the grandson of Uriah Warren, who crossed the seas 
as above described. 

Uriah Warren moved in later life to Monroe County, not far 
from Rehobeth Church, near Union ; later, he removed to Sinking 
Creek, in what was then Giles County, Virginia, now Craig County, 
and in the year 1848 moved back to Monroe County, near Peters- 
town, where Uriah Warren, the grandfather, and his wife both 
died, he at the age of seventy-eight years. The grandmother died at 
the age of eighty-nine years. They raised a family of twelve chil- 
dren, eight girls and four sons. The father of M. M. Warren was 
Curtis H. Warren, the third of the family, and was born on the 
12th day of November, 1807. In 1830, he married Sarah A. Lowe, 
a daughter of Levi Lowe, who was of English descent, of Kanawha 
County, Virginia, and through, the Lowes Mr. W^arren was con- 
nected with the late Joshua Lowe and Gran Lowe, of this county, 
as well as A. C. Lowe, of Lowell, and from this family of Lowes 
the town of Lowell takes its name. 

They lived in Monroe County until the year 1857, when they 
removed to Fayette County. C. H. W arren raised a family of 
seven children, four girls and three boys. The boys were named 
as follows: M. M. Warren, the subject of this sketch, being the 
oldest ; W. W. W arren, who now resides at Jumping Branch ; Lewis 
W arren, who was killed by a C. & O. Ry. train in Fayette County 
on the third day of December, 1901. The four girls were named 
Margaret M., who first married a Basham ; after his death she 
married Franklin Alderson, and after his death, Isaac Cales, of 
Laurel Creek, in this county ; Sarah E. married John Fleshman, 
formerly of Monroe County; Eliza A. was never married; Mary 
L., the youngest, married Harvey Walker, of Fayette County. All 
of the brothers and sisters are still living, except Lewis, who was 
killed, as above stated, and Margaret. 

L. L. Warren removed to Fayette County from Hinton in the 
year 1899 or 1890, and is still a resident of that county. 

M. M. Warren removed to this county, having purchased the 
D. M. Rifle farm at Rifle's Crossing, on Greenbrier River, on the 
9th day of February, 1894. He married Mary J. Fleshman, daugh- 
ter of John Fleshman, of Dutch descent, June 16, 1859. Mr. War- 



416 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ren was a member of Captain W. D. Thurmon'd's company in the 
Confederate Army, and known as Thurmond's Rangers, enlisting 
in September, 1862, in Fayette County. His company was dis- 
banded near Blacksburg, on the 11th day of April, 1865, he re- 
maining with his company during all of that time. He was for- 
tunate in not being wounded during the hostilities, was never cap- 
tured, nor ever had to be excused at a single instance on account 
of sickness or failure in performance of duty, during the whole of 
his time of service. At the close of the Civil War he removed to 
Fayette County, and resided in that county until his removal to 
this county in 1894. 

He raised a family of eight children, five boys and three girls, 
viz., Amanda R., John C, Sallie M., Ellen, Wm. H., Chas. B., Lo- 
renzo D., and James B. Warren. Mr. Warren is a Democrat in 
politics and a Methodist in religion. He has occupied many posi- 
tions of trust among his political associates in Fayette County. 
He was chairman of every Democratic Convention held in Fay- 
ette County for twenty years. He was a member of the Board of 
Education, justice of the peace, and assessor of internal revenue 
in that county before his removal. 

Since removing to this county he has occupied a prominent 
place in the councils of his party, being a member of the Execu- 
tive Committee from his district, and was elected to the House of 
Delegates in the West Virginia Legislature from the county, in 
the year 1903, as a Democrat. His majority over his Republican 
opponent, George Wiseman, a popular railroad engineer of Hinton, 
was 100 votes. 

Mr. Warren is a Shriner in Masonry, having taken all the de- 
grees in that ancient and honorable order. 

The third son of the Hon. M. M. Warren, Wm. Henry War- 
ren, born March 3, 1866, is one of the leading men of the State. 
He is the secretary and treasurer of the New River Smokeless 
Coal Company, and its general manager, which corporation owns 
a very large proportion of the output of the celebrated New River 
soft or Red Ash coal. He is a stockholder and identified with the 
coal development and business in the New River coal field, as well 
as the president of the Citizens' Bank of Hinton, and has the con- 
fidence of the business public. He is one of the enterprising citi- 
zens of the city of Hinton, and whenever there is an enterprise pro- 
jected tending to the advancement of his city and county, we usu- 
ally find him in the front ranks among those promoting its inter- 
ests. He married, November 15, 1892, a daughter of Alexander 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



417 



Laing (Miss Mary Webster Laing, born in Scotland), a Scotch 
coal operator of Fayette County, removing to this county in the 
year 1901. He has recently erected a magnificent residence on 
Ballangee Street, in the city of Hinton. His principal place of 
business at this writing is at Thurmond, W. Va., in Fayette Coun- 
ty, while his residence is in Hinton. 

John C. Warren, another son of M. M. Warren, has held the 
office of constable in Talcott District. 

M. M. W r arren is a man of honorable and upright character, 
and has been a successful and enterprising citizen. He is also an 
engineer and one of the first discoverers, as well as one of the first 
to bring the valuable New River coal deposits to the attention 
of capitalists, and has greatly aided in the great coal industry of 
Fayette County. 

George W. Warren, now cashier of the Bank of Raleigh, is a 
cousin of M. M. Warren. He is a son of Stuart I. Warren, of 
Monroe County; married Miss Harlow, a daughter of the cele- 
brated editor and \-eteran newspaper man of Lewisburg; a brother- 
in-law of Take A. Riffe, of Hinton, who married his sister. He was 
educated for the law, and located in Hinton for the practice of 
his profession in 1883. Later he purchased an interest with J. H. 
Jordan in the "Independent-Herald" newspaper, and edited the 
same for a number of years. He was appointed postmaster by 
Cleveland during his second administration, which office he faith- 
fully filled four years, when he removed to Clifton Forge, Vir- 
ginia, purchased, edited and published the "Review" for several 
years, when he was elected cashier of the Bank of Raleigh, which 
position he now fills, at Beckley, W. Ya. 

JOHN W. WISEMAN 

Is a native of this county; is the son of Jos. G. and Clementine 
Wiseman, who was Clementine Ingle before her marriage to Mr. 
Wiseman, who Avas a nath^e of Potts Creek, in Monroe County. 
The subject of this sketch is one of a family of seven sons. All 
of this family are Republicans except John AY. His brothers are 
Dr. Gooch Wiseman, who is a mail agent in the railwav service, 
and located at Roanoke, Ya. ; George W., who is a railwav loco- 
motive engineer, and was the Republican candidate for house of 
delegates at the election of 1902, being defeated by Hon. M. M. 
Warren, by a majority of 100 votes; Sira, James and Finly, each 
of whom are residents of the countv. 



418 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Joseph G. Wiseman, the father, died six years ago, at the old 
Wiseman homestead, near the mouth of Greenbrier River, at Zion 
Church. John W. Wiseman is now the jailer of this county, and 
one of the deputies of A. J. Keatley, sheriff of the county. He 
was elected a member of the Board of Education of Greenbrier 
District at the election of 1888, and faithfully discharged the du- 
ties of the position. He also served four years as constable, and 
ran with James H. George as one of his deputies at the election 
of 1896, which position he held for four years. Mr. Wiseman has 
for the greater part of his life been engaged in farming and mer- 
cantile pursuits. He is a man of honest character, and popular 
in the confidence of the people and of his neighbors. His wife, 
who was a Miss Webb, daughter of George W. Webb, died a few 
years ago. 

As jailer of the county, he is now rendering faithful service 
to his principal and constituents. While not elected to the posi- 
tion, he was selected promptly as a suitable person to fill the 
position rendered vacant by the death of H. M. Hughes, who was 
elected jail deputy of Sheriff A. J. Keatley. He was born on the 
11th day of April, 1855, and is now in the prime of life, being 
fifty-one years of age. 

W. J. BRIGHTWELL. 

Captain W. J. Brightwell is a native of Prince Edward Coun- 
ty, Virginia ; born May 4, 1852, on a farm, at which occupation 
he remained until July, 1869, when he emigrated to West Vir- 
Virginia, landing on the Big Ben Tunnel July 11th, of that year, 
which was then in Monroe County. He worked on the construc- 
tion of the railroad, and after its completion became a railroad 
employe, and has continued in the service of the Chesapeake & 
Ohio Railway Company continuously from its completion in 1872 
until the present time. 

At the time he came into the territory of the county there was 
no railroad nearer than White Sulphur Springs, and trains ran 
over the Lewis Tunnel, which had not been completed. He has 
been engaged in all kinds of railroad construction and mainte- 
nance, carpentering, mining, firing and engineering; but his great 
success has been as a master wrecker, and in the thirty years of his 
service he has been faithful to all of the demands of his company. 

At this time and for many years he has had charge of the 
wrecking force and train, and is one of the most expert wreckers 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



419 



in the United States. He was never suspended or discharged— 
not even criticised by his superiors — his wages having been ad- 
vanced from time to time as his merit was appreciated. 

He was married in Bath County, Va., to Miss D. V. Saylor, 
on June 3, 1875, first residing at Alderson, then at Talcott until 
1890, when he removed to Hinton, and from that date to the pres- 
ent has been a citizen of that town. His two sons are following 
in the footsteps of their father. H. A., although but twenty-one, 
is captain of a tool car force at Richmond, Va., and the other son, 
F. H., is a railway clerk in Hinton. He has three daughters — 
Misses Pauline and Maude, and Mrs. Kate Plumley, who resides 
at Parkersburg, W. Va. 

Captain Brightwell is one of the most enterprising citizens of 
the town, and through his industry and judicious management has 
acquired a considerable fortune. He is a director, and has been 
since its formation, of the Bank of Summers, and has been a mem- 
ber of the Board of Education, and several terms a member of the 
city council, having been re-elected on the 5th day of December, 
1905. He has never been a politician or sought any office, and is 
a Democrat, and adheres to the policies of that party. In the 
"money" campaign of 1896 he supported Bryan, and, because he 
displayed Bryan's picture at his residence conspicuously, his wages 
were reduced $10.00 per month for some time. He is engaged in 
numerous business enterprises, including coal production, banking 
and merchandising. 

CAPTAIN J. M. AYRES. 

Captain Ayres was born in the year 1843, in Monroe County, 
at Dickson's Springs, near. Pickaway ; was a son of Stradford and 
Nancy Ayres, who were natives of Rockbridge County. Virginia, 
and removed to Monroe County in the winter of 1842, thence to 
Greenbrier County when Captain Ayres was 18 years old. 

He volunteered in the Rocky Point Grays, and was a brave 
Confederate soldier throughout the Civil War — Louis F. Watts 
being his captain — and was attached to the 27th Virginia Infantry, 
a part of the time under Generals Jones, Echols and Breckenridge. 
He enlisted on the 11th day of April, 1861, lacking nine-days of 
being eighteen years of age, and was mustered out of the service 
on the 12th day of April, 1865, at Blacksburg, Va. He was cap- 
tured at the Battle of Cedar Creek, but escaped from his captors 
the following night, slipping away from them after dark, and pro- 



420 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ceeding into the Massenot Mountain, where he spent three or 
four days and nights, finally getting into Page Valley at Luray, 
and joining McCausland's Brigade, with whom he fought a battle, 
and was brought in with McCausland's men, and rejoined his com- 
mand on the eleventh day after his escape. Captain Ayres was 
engaged in the battles of Scarey, Cedar Creek, Cross Lanes, Rude's 
Hill, second Battle of Strasburg, Fisher's Hill, New Market, and 
many other of the bloody battles of the war. 

He helped bury in one grave 214 Federal soldiers killed at New 
Market. At this battle he was - promoted on the field to ser- 
geant major, and afterwards promoted to adjutant. After the war 
he located in Greenbrier ; was engaged in farming, measuring lum- 
ber, etc., and came to this county in 1883, to Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict, where he clerked in a store and worked as a carpenter until 
he arrived at Hinton, in 1890, being at that time appointed deputy 
clerk of the county court, which office he so faithfully administered 
that, in 1896, he was nominated over his predecessors, E. H. Peck 
and J. A. Rifle, for clerk of the county court of this county, and 
was elected by a large majority for the term of six years. He was 
a candidate for renomination, but was defeated by a strong com- 
bination against him ; has since been engaged in the mercantile 
business, and now resides in the city of Hinton. 

Captain Ayres stands high in the esteem of the citizens as an 
honorable, law-abiding citizen. He was married twice, his first 
wife being Miss Belle Ingles, of Greenbrier County, and his sec- 
ond wife Miss Priscilla Young, of Summers County. He has one 
son, William Ayres, residing in the State of Indiana. 

Captain Ayres was also twice elected to the office of recorder of 
the city of Hinton, and was deputy clerk of the circuit court of this 
county for six years. 

SILAS F. TAYLOR. 

Silas F. Taylor was an old resident of Lick Creek, of Green 
Sulphur District; was a native of Bedford County, Virginia, hav- 
ing emigrated with his father to Monroe County when sixteen 
years of age. He died in the year 1896, having been a resident of 
the territory within the county for sixty years, settling on Lick 
Creek in 1855. He married Miss Sabina Nutter, in Monroe County, 
in 1842. He was the father of six children — James M. Taylor, 
W. J. Taylor, generally known as "Jack" ; D. C. Taylor, Mark D. 
Taylor, Charles Lee Taylor and Eli W. Taylor", and one daugh- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 421 



ter, Mary Susan, who married D. R. Thomas in 1872, and now 
resides on Griffith's Creek, in this county. C. L. Taylor now re- 
sides in Fayette County ; Mark D. Taylor resides in Beckley, Ra- 
leigh County ; James M. in Greenbrier County ; Eli W. being the 
only ©ne of the sons remaining a citizen of this county, and who 
now resides at Greenbrier Springs, being one of the stockholders 
in the corporation which owns that property, and is, like his father, 
a brick mason by trade. Silas F. Taylor, the ancestor, was a 
brick mason by trade, and had a reputation throughout all this 
section of the country for his honest work and ability in his oc- 
cupation. He built the brick house of Captain A. A. Miller on Lick 
Creek, also one for Augustus Gwinn near Alderson, one for Andrew 
Gwinn at Lowell, and also the Ephraim J. Gwinn brick house at 
Green Sulphur Springs, now occupied by ex-Sheriff H. Gwinn, and 
many other old, substantial brick buildings of the county. Some 
years before his death he removed to Alderson, in Greenbrier 
County, where he died in 1896. 

At the breaking out of the war he was captain of the militia, 
and became a soldier of the Confederacy, being captured in 1862, 
confined in Johnson's Island prison, and after his discharge entered 
the service under Captain Philip Thurmond, and was again cap- 
tured and confined in the same prison, and finally exchanged at the 
close of the war and dismissed from prison. 

Each of the sons followed their father in the selection of an oc- 
cupation, and those residing in this county who are personally 
known to the writer are Eli W., James M., Mark D. and C. L. All 
are fine brick masons, Eli W., during the year 1905, having su- 
perintended the construction of the Ewart-Miller building in Hin- 
ton, opposite the court house, and also the new brick store build- 
ing of the New River Grocery Company. 

We reproduce a letter written to Silas F. Taylor by his son, 
Wm. J. Taylor: 

"August 1, '62. Camp Chase, Ohio, Prison No. 1, Mess 5. 
"Dear Father: 1 take my pen in hand to inform you that I am 
well and hearty. I was taken prisoner at Lewisburg on the 23d 
day of May. I was slightly wounded in the thigh. I want you to 
write to me as soon as you get this letter and let me know how 
you have been and when you heard from home. I have not heard 
from home but once since I was taken. I would like to see you. 
I want you to write to me soon. Direct your letter to Prison 1, 
Mess 5. I got a letter from Sam Fox. He said that John Sur- 
baugh was well. I would like to see you and all of the family. So 



422 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



nothing more at present, but remain your friend, Wm. J. Taylor, 
to Silas F. Taylor." 

W e also copy a tax ticket of 1859 of Mr. Taylor's, which is 
something of a curiosity in these days : 

"Mr. Silas F. Taylor to the sheriff of Greenbrier County, Dr., 
1859. To 2 county levy at 90 cents, parish levy at 80 cents, $3.40; 

to capitation tax at 80 cents, $0.80; to slaves at 120 cents, ; 

to property tax on $78 valuation at 40 cents, $0.32; to land tax 

on ; total, $4.52. Received payment, , deputy. For 

Andrew Beard, S. G. Co." 



THE BOLTON FAMILY. 

Absolem Dempsey Bolton was the head of the only family of 
that name that we have any information of in this county. This 
gentleman emigrated to this country from the county of Giles, in 
the State of Virginia, in the year 1878, locating permanently on 
Bradshaw's Run, near Forest Hill. He had been preaching in 
this county, and was a pastor of the Baptist churches for twenty- 
eight years before his permanent removal into the State. He was 
a minister of the Missionary Baptist Church ; a man of fine attain- 
ments and fine character. No man left a better name to his pos- 
terity, or better heritage to his descendants, than did Rev. A. D. 
Bolton. He was ordained as a minister of the Missionary Bap- 
tist Church December 16, 1861, and we are able to append a copy 
of his certificate, executed by the venerable Matthew Ellison and 
others. We have a memorandum from his diary showing that 
from June, 1873, to October 22, 1899, he preached three hundred 
sermons, and tHe texts and places at which these sermons were 
delivered, as well as the date of ^ each; from 1885 to 1898, inclusive, 
he married 95 couples. He was born December 12, 1828, and on 
December 12. 1850, was married to Miss Clementine Albert. He 
delivered his last sermon at Indian Mills, on November 5, 1899, 
from the text, II. Thess., 14-16. 

Following is a copy of his certificate of ordination : 

"This is to certify that our brother, Absolem D. Bolton, was 
publicly ordained and set apart for the full work of the gospel min- 
istry, with prayer and laying on of hands by the undernamed Pres- 
bytery, according to the usages of the Baptist Church, on Decem- 
ber 16, 1861. He was called to ordination by the Big Stony Creek 
Church, regularly connected with the Valley Baptist Association, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 423 



of which church he is a member, and which, after full and sufficient 
opportunity to judge of his gifts, were agreed in their opinion that 
he was called to the work of the ministry. Our brother was ac- 
cordingly received with the full and entire approbation of the Pres- 
bytery called by the church, and also of the church, in thus enter- 
ing officially upon the full work of the gospel ministry, and is 
hereby authorized to administer all the ordinances of the gospel, 
and to perform all the duties under a minister of- Christ, and may 
the great Head of the Church abundantly bless him in all of his 
labors, and may he walk worthy the high vocation whereof he has 
been called. 

Given under our hands December 16, 1861. 

M. ELLISON, 
JOHN B. LEE, 
W. R. GITT." 

He left two sons, Henry Albert and James D., both residents 
of Forest Hill, and one daughter, Ettie W. H. A. Bolton is a 
prosperous farmer and a very intelligent and honorable gentle- 
man, respected by his neighbors and the community. J. D. Bol- 
ton has been deputy sheriff of this county during two terms of 
four years each, first as deputy for James H. George, and the sec- 
ond term under Harvey Ewart, filling that position to the eminent 
satisfaction of his principals and to the people. The Bolton fam- 
ily is of English descent, emigrating to this country from Bolton 
City, England. 

Both of these gentlemen are consistent members of the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church, and in politics are Democrats, and have 
both been warm adherents to the political fortunes of the author, 
Mr. Jas. D. Bolton having, in the campaign of 1904, personally 
canvassed large portions of the counties of Raleigh and Wyoming 
of his own accord and as a matter of personal friendship, in the 
writer's race for the judgeship. He is now engaged as one of the 
proprietors of the Greenbrier Springs, with Sheriff A. J. Keatly as 
his partner. He is the youngest son of Rev. A. D. Bolton, and 
was born on the 21st day of November, 1855, at Parisburg, Va., 
and was married to Miss Garten, a daughter of Chas. Garten, Sr., 
of Forest Hill District. 

H. A. Bolton, the oldest son of Rev. A. D. Bolton, also married 
a Miss Garten, and these two brothers are also brothers-in-law. 
Charles W. Garten married Miss Ettie Bolton, the only daughter. 
H. A. Bolton is one of the enterprising- farmers of Forest Hill Dis- 



424 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

trict, and is a careful, temperate and honest citizen, respected by 
all persons, and wherever known. 

A GOOD MAN GONE. 

(From Independent-Herald.) 

The death of Rev. A. D. Bolton, which has been expected at 
any time for several months past, occurred at his home near For- 
est Hill, in this county, at 8 o'clock P. M. on the 27th ult. 

The deceased was in the seventy-second year of his age, and 
up to November, 1899, he had been able to keep up his regular 
pastoral work with the churches of which he was the honored and 
beloved pastor. 

He was a native of Giles County, Virginia, where he lived un- 
til December, 1878, when he moved to this county, settling in the 
home where his death occurred. He leaves a widow with whom 
he had walked in sweet companionship for nearly fifty years — the 
5th of next December would have been their fiftieth marriage day. 

He leaves two sons, H. A. and J. D., both prominent and use- 
ful citizens of this county, and one daughter, Etta, who, with her 
mother, ministered so tenderly at the side of their loved but suf- 
fering one, during the months of his affliction. Another member of 
his family was his nephew Abbie, whom he raised from infancy, 
and whom he loved as his own child. 

Brother Bolton spent about forty years of his life in the minis- 
try of the Baptist Church, and while the writer knows but little 
of his life and labors before coming to West Virginia, yet I am 
glad to say that I have personal knowledge of his work in this 
State, which begun with the Peterstown church in the latter part 
of 1871, seven years before he moved to this county. During these 
twenty-nine years he served as pastor, for longer or shorter pe- 
riods, the following churches of the Greenbrier Association : Pe- 
terstown, Fairview, Springfield, Talcott, Pine Grove, Indian Mills, 
Red Sulphur and Little Wolf Creek, in which relation he continued 
with the last three named till his death. He was also pastor, for 
a term of three years, of Jumping Branch Church in Raleigh Asso- 
ciation. No pastor was ever more beloved and honored by the 
churches and the people to whom he preached than he was. He 
was recognized as a man of ability, and in debate on questions of 
doctrine, as the writer has often heard him, he was excellent. He 
has gone, but he has left to his family, his neighbors and friends, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 425 



and the churches over which he watched, a name and record and 
influence of which we may all be grateful to God. 

His funeral service took place from the Fairview Baptist 
Church, a discourse being preached by the writer from Acts 11 :24: 
"For he was a good man and full of the Holy Ghost of faith, and 
much people was added unto the Lord." 

Revs. Hank, Thorne and McClelland were present and took part 
in the services. 

A large gathering of people was present, coming from afar to 
testify their love for the good man. His remains were laid to rest 
in the Fairview Cemetery, to wait the blast of the trumpet sig- 
naling the great rising and crowning day. 

' J. P. CAMPBELL. 

MADDY. 

There is an old family of settlers in Monroe County who have 
an ancient as well as a tragic history. Nancy, or Nannie, or Annie 
Parsons, was a sister of Robert Morris, the patriot financier of the 
Revolution of 1776, who resided in Philadelphia; and in providing 
funds to carry on the great Revolution impoverished himself, dying 
in poverty by reason of the obligations assumed by him, and as a 
compensation for which, and as a partial remuneration, the Gov- 
ernment granted to him many thousand acres of wild, unappro- 
priate lands, much of which lies in West Virginia and west of the 
Alleghenies, and especially in Raleigh, Wyoming, Mercer and Mc- 
Dowell Counties, and some of which patented lands extends into 
Summers County, known as The Robert Morris Patents or Grants, 
.and many acres of the finest timber territory in the world is in- 
cluded therein, and which is now worth an inestimable amount of 
money since the developments of recent years ; but during the 
lifetime of Morris a sufficient amount could not be realized there- 
from to cover the tax assessments thereon. This sister of Mor- 
ris' married a man by the name of Maddy, who was a soldier in 
Washington's Colonial Army, and after the close of that war was 
accidentally drowned in the Shenandoah River in the Valley of 
Virginia. His widow, with her children, emigrated to Monroe 
County, and settled on what is still known as the "Charles Maddy 
Place," near the Saltpetre Cave near Greenville, where she reared 
her family. She had a considerable estate in Virginia, which it 
became necessary for her to return to and settle up, and she rode 
horseback through the mountains and the wilderness, crossing the 



426 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Alleghenies. After transacting her affairs and recovering her 
money — a considerable sum — she proceeded on her return, and 
in doing so she stopped over night with a settler in the wilderness. 
During her stay she incidentally disclosed the fact of her carrying 
on her person considerable funds. On the next morning the gen- 
tleman of the the house told her he knew of a direct route through 
the hills that . would save her a great part of the distance, and vol- 
unteered to show her the near cut. They proceeded for some time, 
until they came to a wild place and a great cliff, where the man 
stopped, told her to give him her money, and declared his object 
to be to secure the money, which she carried on her person in her 
clothing, and to murder her. She declined to give up the money, 
when he demanded her to take off her dress, it being his purpose 
to secure it and the money therein, and throw her body over the 
cliff. She requested him to turn his back, as she did not desire to 
undress in his presence. This he did, turning his back to her and 
facing the precipice, whereupon she gave him a sudden push with 
all her strength, sending his body headlong over the cliffs and into 
the ravine below, by which he was instantly killed, thus saving 
her own life, as well as the money which she carried. She then 
proceeded on her journey, and arrived at her home in safety. 

After the death of her first husband, Maddy, she married a 
gentleman by the name of Parsons, and lived to a very old age, 
and was known throughout her neighborhood as "Granny Par- 
sons." She never bore any children by her last husband. 

From this lady has descended some of the best citizens of this 
region of the country, and many of her descendants still reside 
in Summers, Monroe and adjoining counties. John Maddy, who 
died at a very old age, lived and died near Greenville, and was a 
very wealthy man; was a pioneer merchant at that place, and 
owned good lands around the country. His son, Richard Maddy, 
who married a Miss Peck, died a few years since at that place, 
where he owned a splendid farm, the Riley Cook place, where his 
widow and children still live. John Maddy late in his life married 
a Miss Arnet. Charles Maddy was a brother of John, and together 
with their brother-in-law, David Hinton, at one time, some fifty 
years ago, owned the Hinton lands on which the city of Avis is 
built. The land, about 150 acres, was sold under judicial decree 
of the circuit court of Monroe County, and purchased by the Mad- 
dys and David Hinton, who were brothers-in-law and brother of 
John Hinton, at this sale, it being sold for the payment of debts 
of John Hinton — "Jack." Later they conveyed it to Mrs. Avis 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 427 



Hinton, who held it to the date of her death. These two Maddys 
also at one time owne,d the Boyd farm at Little Bend Tunnel now 
owned by Lewis N. Bartgis. Matthew Maddy, another brother, 
lived on Little Stony Creek, and it was during his life the sulphur 
spring on the Maddy farm, known as the Lindeman Spring, was 
discovered. It was a deer lick and swampy place. A gum was 
placed in the ground, through which the percolating water es- 
caped. After sixty years this gum — a piece of hollow tree — was 
taken out, and it was found as sound as the day it was placed in 
the spring. 

Gabriel Maddy lived on this farm for many years, being a son of 
Matthew. Later he removed onto the Wolf Creek Mountain, in 
Greenbrier District, where he died, leaving a widow and five boys. 
Thomas C, for a long time a ferryman at Talcott until the bridge 
was built there in 1905, was a brave soldier in the Confederate 
Army, and noted for his patriotism and faithfulness to the Demo- 
cratic party. He has been a member of the Board of Education, a 
road surveyor for several years, and is an honest man, being the 
present and only tax collector for the Talcott toll bridge since its 
construction. His son Oscar also resides at Talcott. Thaddeus 
R. Maddy, another son of Gabriel, now lives at Dugat, in Raleigh 
County. He was for many years a resident of this county, a val- 
iant soldier in the Confederate Army, and held the office of consta- 
ble for several years in the county. Jesse, another son, a farmer, 
died in 1906, near Hinton. Two other sons of Gabriel were killed 
in battle during the Civil War, and one shot and killed accidentally. 
Their names I have failed to secure. One daughter married Mar- 
shall Scarberry, and lives on the Gabriel Maddy place on the moun- 
tain. A brother of Gabriel was Dr. Eber W. Maddy. Another 
descendant of Nancy (or Annie) (Maddy) Parsons was Alexander 
Maddy, who died in Monroe County many years ago. Wilson (the 
litigant), who lives not far from Talcott, was his son. He has 
been famous for the great number of lawsuits he has maintained, 
and by which he has unfortunately made himself poor, but en- 
riched the lawyers. 

Dr. Eber W. Maddy, a dentist, was a noted man in his day, but 
not in the way of bearing out the good reputation of the Maddy 
name. He was a scientific dentist, who practiced throughout ad- 
joining counties. He owned large boundaries of real estate in Tal- 
cott District and in Raleigh, valuable in coal, but through dissi- 
pation and litigation it all passed from his hands before his death — 
lands now easily. worth more than $100,000. He and his nephew 



428 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Wilson had many bitterly contested suits. His descendants still 
reside in the county. 

Another of the Maddy descendants was Rev. John C. Maddy, 
an eminent Methodist divine in Ohio State, where his sons, Frank 
and Charles, still reside at Toledo. His daughter Ella, who mar- 
ried a Mr. Tucker, resides in Topeka, Kansas. Augusta, who is 
married and lives in Los Angeles, California, and Miss Emma, 
also a resident of Toledo. 

Another of the descendants was James Maddy, who settled at 
Galhpolis, Ohio. His son William was a steamboat captain on the 
Ohio, and was sent for and operated the "Cecilia," the only steam- 
boat ever operated in Xew River. A daughter of James, Mary, 
married Mr. Caleb Johnson, an honorable gentleman of Monroe 
County, and whose daughters, Misses Josephine and Salome, now 
live in Hinton, and the daughter Ella married Mr. Edgar Johnson, 
president of the Greenbrier Valley Bank, at Alderson, and one son 
James C. Johnson, who now lives in Texas. 

Another daughter of James Maddy, Eliza, married Major Rich- 
- ard Woodrum, and other children are scattered throughout the Mid- 
dle West. 

Another descendant was Peter Maddy, a son of Matthew Mad- 
dy, who married Miss Elizabeth George, a daughter of John George, 
of Greenbrier County. He owned 400 acres of good land on Lick 
Creek. While a young man he joined the Confederate Army, con- 
tracted the typhoid fever and died at Lmion, leaving a widow, Eliza- 
beth, who died in recent years, and two infant sons, John Peter and 
William T., who still reside in the county, and are enterprising and 
honorable citizens. Richard McNeer, Sr., married Elizabeth Maddy, 
a sister of John, Charles and Matthew Maddy, and from whom all 
the generations of McNeers and allied connections are descendants. 

We are unable to give any detailed account of this ancient and 
honorable family, and give only such incidental information as we 
hai-e. 

CAPTAIN ROBERT W. SAUNDERS. 

Captain Robert W. Saunders was born June 8, 1828, in Bedford 
County, Virginia, and was of English descent. He died on the 
20th of October, 1904. Early in life he located in the territory of 
Forest Hill District. His first wife Avas Lina Miller, by whom 
he raised three children — Lewis, Rebecca and Maria — all dead, 
dying from diphtheria during the war. The second wife- was Sa- 



HON. UPSHUR HIGGINBOTHAM, 
Lawyer, Orator and Republican Politician. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 429 

rah E. Meadows, daughter of Robert Meadows, who lived near the 
old church on Greenbrier River. Their children were Edward Lee, 
Josephine, who married A. A. McDowell; A. H. and C. E. Saun- 
ders. His third wife was Sallie A. Harvey, a daughter of Allen 
L. Harvey. Robert A. Saunders was a captain during the Civil 
War in the Confederate service. He was one of the main supports 
of the Missionary Baptist Church of Forest Hill, of which he was 
a member for thirty years. His sons are now prominent and law- 
abiding citizens of the county, active in affairs. Captain Saunders 
was a man of property, and one of the founders of the county. 

HIGGINBOTHAM. 

Upshur Higginbotham was born in Mercer County, West Vir- 
ginia, December 1, 1875; spent his youth on the farm; was edu- 
cated at the Normal School at Athens and at the West Virginia 
University, taking the law course in the latter institution. Having 
completed the same, he located in Hinton, December, 1900, for the 
practice of his profession. Soon after entering the practice he was 
appointed by Judge Jackson referee in bankruptcy, which position 
he held until his resignation in 1905. In 1906, seeking a wider field 
for his abilities, he located in Charleston, entering into a parner- 
ship for the practice of law with Hon. Dell Rummell, city attor- 
ney. In 1904 he was appointed private secretary to Hon. Jos. H. 
Gaines, member *of Congress from the Third W^est Virginia Dis- 
trict, which position he has successfully and intelligently filled 
until the present time. Mr. Higginbotham is a Republican in poli- 
tics, a shrewd party leader, and has had the confidence of his party 
associates. In 1902 he was elected Secretary of the Republican 
Congressional Committee for the Third West Virginia District, 
which position he still holds. On May 29, 1902, he was united in 
marriage with Miss Roberta R. Kessler, of Talcott District, a 
daughter of Henry F. Kessler, Esq. Mr. Higginbotham is an able 
lawyer and a strong man, with bright prospects in his profession. 

BROWN. 

Garret Brown was one of the old settlers of Forest Hill. A 
son of Garret Brown still lives on the old place near Barger 
Springs, at the top of the hill. Garret's father's name was Wil- 
liam. The grandfather of Allen first settled on Bradshaw's Run, 
at the Bolton farm-. A mound still stands on this farm where his 



430 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



house was burned by the Indians, who came to the house in the 
absence of the menfolks and set fire to the flax in the roof and 
burned the house. They carried the old lady Brown away. She 
was a very fleshy woman, and when the Indians came to the house 
and found the old lady alone and the men gone, set the house afire. 
The men came home, found the house burning, followed the In- 
dians to Paint Creek, at an old Indian camp on the land afterwards 
owned by Eber Maddy. They were preparing to burn Mrs. Brown 
at the stake, as she was so fleshy they had decided not to be both- 
ered with her any longer. The Indians had everything ready for 
the bonfire, when the men fired on the Indians, and thus rescued 
her. Garret Brown settled where Allen F. Brown now lives, sixty- 
three years ago. His son Allen married a daughter of Rufus Clark, 
of Pipestem. Her name was Mary Ellen, and they were married in 
1855. He was a member of Philip Thurmond's Rangers during the 
war. He had one sister, who weighed only thirty-three and one- 
half pounds, was twenty-two inches in height, and lived to be 
twenty-two years old. She was born in 1853. The Garret Brown 
patent was issued by the Governor of Virginia in 1855, for 136 
acres, and adjoined the John Carclen patent of 100 acres. The 
old Watkins patent adjoins the Brown lands. Garret Brown mar- 
ried Harriet Ann Alford, of Monroe County, and who was a Scotch 
woman from Scotland. The children of Allen Brown are Roxie, 
Nora, Mary, Jennie Lee and Lura ; also one son, Prince Clark. Gar- 
ret Brown was made famous by the old ejectment suit of Carden 
vs Brown, which pended in the circuit court for thirteen years. It 
was pending in Monroe County prior to its removal to this county. 

THOMAS W. TOWNSLEY. 

The ancient and celebrated auctioneer was born March 25, 1835, 
in Roanoke, Virginia. His father's name was W. N. Townsley, 
of England, born in May, 1800. He married a Miss Wade. Thomas 
W. emigrated to this part of the country in 1840, and located first 
within one mile of Peterstown, and has been within the territory 
of this county thence hitherto ; was a brave Confederate soldier, 
a member of Clark's Battalion, 30th Virginia, Horton's Brigade, 
Breckenridge's Division ; was in many of the great battles of the 
Civil War, including Cold Harbor, Leetown, Winchester, Kerns- 
town and New Market, and was at the battle of Lewisburg. He 
was constable of Forest Hill District for twelve years. His first 
wife was Nancy J. Brown; his second wife a Keatley, and third a 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 431 



Shelton. His children are Mary, Eliza, who married Judson Fos- 
ter; Alice,. who married Peter M. Foster; and Josephine, who mar- 
ried Green Taylor. Thos. Jalysle and C. Luther are his two sons, 
residing at Hinton, engaged in the employment of the C. & O. Ry. 
Co. Thomas W. Townsley is a shoemaker by trade and a Demo- 
crat in politics ; was for one year the sergeant of the town of Up- 
per Hinton, and has been for a number of years the janitor of the 
court house. 

RATLIFFE MYSTERY. 

During the building of the Big Bend Tunnel in 1872, a peddler 
by the name of RatlifTe disappeared, and was never heard of after. 
He had on his person $375, and left the tunnel accompanied by 
Harry Gill, who lived in the mountains back of Bradshaw's Run, 
in Forest Hill District. Mr. Henry Milburn saw the peddler and 
Gill cross the Greenbrier River near his place, and they went on 
in the direction of Gill's. That night a Mr. Lowe, who lived in 
the neighborhood, heard the cries of distress of some one appeal- 
ing for help. At first he thought the cries came from his father's, 
and he ran in that direction, on Bradshaw's Run, but discovered 
that the trouble was in the mountain. The cries ceased, and later 
in the night a great fire w r as seen in the direction of Gill's. The 
next day it was learned that Gill's stable had burned during the 
night, claimed to be accidental. The peddler was never seen or 
heard of afterwards, and no evidence could be found of him except 
a piece of his trousers was found in a hollow hickory tree in the 
neighborhood of where the stable had burned, with a hole near 
the waistband, indicating and appearing to have been made by a 
bullet. No arrests were made, as no evidence could be found for 
certain that RatlifTe was dead. A few years ago this same Harry 
Gill died, and during his last illness the neighbors came in to attend 
on him and administer to his wants, and during this last illness 
.he seemed to be in great despair, although perfectly sane in mind, 
and he would cry out, "There is RatlifTe ! Take him away!" Finally 
he secured possession of a pair of scissors, and demanded to know 
if RatlifTe was gone. He kept hold of this weapon until his death. 
People were present at his death who were not in the State at the 
time of the disappearance of the peddler, and had never heard of 
him or of the circumstances. Gill lived to be an old man, and was 
in his late years elected a constable. Whether RatlifTe was killed 
was never known. The corpus delicti could never be proven. 

Here is the foundation for one of the ''Strange Schemes of Ran- 
dolph Mason, Lawyer." 



432 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



MAXWELL. 

There is but one family of this name in Summers County, that 
of Robert H. Maxwell, of Avis, who has been a resident thereof 
almost since the formation of the county. He was born in Clover 
Bottom, on Bluestone River, on the 26th day of December, 1843. 
When he was fourteen years old his father moved to Raleigh Coun- 
ty, in the Winding Gulf region, where he remained until the out- 
break of the Civil War, at which time he removed to Jackson 
County, West Virginia, and on the 15th of August, 1862, enlisted 
in Company K, West Virginia Infantry, United States Army, re- 
maining in the active service throughout the remainder of the war. 
He took part in the Hunter raid throughout West Virginia, and 
participated in many battles and skirmishes. When his army 
reached Lynchburg, Virginia, on this raid, he was shot, and was 
left on the field of battle and taken prisoner by the Confederate 
Army, carried to Richmond, the capital of the Confederacy, and 
there confined in the famous Libby Prison. He was paroled on the 
14th of September, 1864, and went to the Union hospital at An- 
napolis, Maryland. When Mr. Maxwell left Libby Prison his first 
movements were to secure something to eat. He drew a day's ra- 
tions, which he ate for breakfast. He sold his canteen and blanket 
for nine dollars in the coin of the Confederate realm, all of which 
he spent for bread, and all of which he ate at one meal. He then 
started down the James River to the place Avhere prisoners were 
exchanged, and again found himself under the stars and stripes ; 
and it was then that he saw the first bacon and ham which he had 
seen in all the time since he had entered the army, and there he 
finished up the meal which he began at Libby Prison, and there 
he secured the first coffee he had seen in three months. After the 
war he returned to Jackson County, having been discharged from 
the army in 1865. He there married Virginia Rand, a daughter 
of Robert Rand, of that county, to which union there were born 
three children — John B. Maxwell, now of Texarkana, Texas; Nel- 
lie, who married Captain Bobbett, the Railway conductor of Hin- 
ton ; and Annie, who married a Mr. Barker, of Kansas City, Kan- 
sas. After the death of his first wife he moved to Hinton, West 
Virginia, in 1883, and married Miss Eliza Flanagan, a daughter of 
Richard A. Flanagan, of Fayette County, and by this union one son 
was born — Irvin Maxwell, the lawyer, now located in Virginia. 
Upon locating in Hinton he engaged in the timber and lumber 
business, which he has followed up until 1904, since which time 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 433 



he has been engaged principally in the real estate business. He 
is an active politician, takes great interest in the conventions and 
elections in his county, he being an old-school Republican, but is 
never a candidate for office. One time he was the chairman of the 
Republican county committee, and has been one of the leaders in 
the councils of that party. In 1904 he took an active part with the 
old-time branch of the party in the county troubles. 

Irvin Maxwell, the lawyer, was admitted to practice in this 
State and county in 1906, in the town of his birth. He is a gradu- 
ate of the law school at Washington and Lee University. His 
home is in Hinton. Robt. H. Maxwell is one of the leading citizens 
of Avis; has been mayor of that city, member of the city council 
several terms, and is now a member of that body. He is an enter- 
prising and useful citizen. It was largely through his efforts that 
the dyke improvements have been secured to prevent the overflow 
from floods in that municipality. He has been successful in his 
business affairs and is independent. 

The ancestors of R. H. Maxwell are among the original pioneer 
settlers west of the Allegheny Mountains in the New River Valley. 

Captain Maxwell was one of the commanders who fought the 
Indians in 1782, in the Holstine River settlements in Abb's Val- 
ley, and was in command in the Indian troubles in the Ingles set- 
tlements of the Upper New River. 

This Captain Thomas Maxwell, with Samuel Ferguson and the 
Peerys. were in the battle of the Alamance. They came from the 
Valley of Virginia. Two of the daughters of Captain Maxwell 
were killed by the Indians at the time of the Ingles settlement 
troubles. Robert H. Maxwell's father's name was Mathias, who 
married Juliet Brown, of Mercer County — the same family of 
Browns as Mrs. J. M. Carden and Mrs. Margaret Bray, wife of 
Dr. Thomas Bray. A brother of Mr. Maxwell, J. A. Maxwell, 
now resides in Portsmouth, Ohio. He was a soldier in the United 
States Army during the Civil War in the same company as his 
brother. Another brother, John, was a member of the St. Louis 
Cavalry in the United States Army. The father of Mathias Max- 
well was William Maxwell. The Maxwells are directly connected 
with the Clays, who first settled in the Clover Bottom, on the Big 
Bluestone, Tabitha Clay, who was killed by the Indians at that 
place, being a direct blood connection of Robert H. Maxwell. The 
Maxwells, Clays, Browns and Jordans were related from the first 
pioneer, Mitchell Clay, who raised thirteen children. 

The Maxwells were early settlers in the Upper New River Val- 



434 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS 



COUNTY, 



WEST VIRGINIA. 



lev, and were attacked by the Indians in 1782. Captain Thomas 
Maxwell was the leader of fifteen or twenty men, with anothei 
force of five or six men with John Hix, whose descendants live 
in this county, which he had gotten together, who pursued a parcel 
of Indians in 1782 who had attacked the Ingles settlement on New 
River. They pursued the Indians for five days, and finally discov- 
ered them in a gap of Sandy Ridge, which divides the waters of 
Sandy and Clinch Rivers. This gap since that time is known as 
Maxwell's Gap, a short distance west of Abb's Valley. Captain 
Maxwell divided his company, he taking a part of his men to the 
flank of the Indians, while Ingles remained with the other portion 
in the rear, the fight to be made at daylight the next morning. 
Unfortunately, Maxwell, in order to escape detection, bore too far 
away, and was not in position to make the attack at the appointed 
time. Ingles, having waited beyond the hour agreed upon, seeing 
the Indians begin to move, began the attack. The Indians there- 
upon began to tomahawk the prisoners. Mr. Ingles reached his 
wife just as she had received a terrible blow on the head. They 
had already tomahawked his daughter, five years old, and his son 
William, three years old. In their retreat the Indians passed be- 
low Captain Maxwell and the party, fired upon them, and killed 
Captain Maxwell. The wounded little girl died, but the mother 
recovered. This gap on the Sandy is known to this day as Max- 
well's Gap. 

We have no direct history of the Maxwells and their descend- 
ants from that day to the present, except in a general way. That 
Maxwell's ancestors were Indian fighters and scouts and soldiers 
in the Revolution there is no doubt. The Maxwells, Browns, Pearis 
and Jordans are related through the descendants of this original 
settler, Mitchell Clay. Captain John Maxwell was also of the same 
family. Two of his daughters were captured by -the Indians near 
the Clinch about 1782. Captain James Maxwell was also another 
one of these pioneer soldiers and Indian fighters. The battle of the 
Alamance was fought in 1772, in which Thomas Maxwell took a 
part. The Maxwells were Scotch-Irish. 

Mitchell Clay settled on the Clover Bottom tract of land in 
1775. This was the first white settlement made in the present ter- 
ritorial limits of Mercer County. Andrew Culbertson settled 
Crump's Bottom twenty years prior to the settlement of the Clover 
Bottom. Clay and his family remained on this land undisturbed for 
a period of eight years, and were finally attacked by the Indians, 
and a part of his family killed and one captured. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 435 



Clay opened up a considerable farm on the Clover Bottoms. 
In 1783, in the month of August, he and his sons Bartley and 
Ezekiel were building fence around grain stacks. It was in the 
afternoon. The boys were at work. The older daughter and some 
of the young girls were at the river washing. A party of eleven In- 
dians crept up to the edge of the field and shot Bartley dead. The 
discharge of the gun alarmed the girls at the river, and they started 
on a run to the house. An Indian attempted to scalp the young 
man and at the same time capture the girls. The older girl, Tabi- 
tha, undertook to defend the body of her dead brother and pre- 
vent his being scalped, and in the struggle with the Indian she 
reached for his butcher knife, which hung in his belt, and missing 
it, the Indian drew it and stabbed her repeatedly. She, however, 
several times wrung the knife from his hands and cast it aside, 
but he each time recovered it, and continued cutting her with the 
knife until he had literally chopped her to pieces before killing her. 
The small girls, during the melee, escaped to the house, and the 
small brother, Ezekiel, a lad of sixteen years, was captured by an- 
other Indian. The house of Mitchell Clay stood on a high point 
or knoll, three hundred yards due west of the dwelling house now 
owned by the present occupant. The foundation stones of the old 
Clay cabin are still there to be seen. About the time the attack 
was made by the Indians, a man by the name of Liggon Blanken- 
ship called at the Clay cabin, and when Mrs. Clay discovered her 
daughter in the struggle with the Indian, begged Blankenship to 
shoot the Indian and save the child ; instead thereof he took to his 
heels and ran to the New River settlements, and reported that 
Clay and all his family had been killed. This cowardly behavior 
of Blankenship has been handed down from generation to genera- 
tion, and will be to the end of all time. The Indians, securing the 
scalp of the young man, Bartley, and the sister, Tabitha, with their 
prisoner, Ezekiel, left. As soon as they left, Mrs. Clay took her 
children and carried the bodies of the dead ones to the house and 
placed them on a bed, left the cabin with her children, and made 
her way through the wild woods six miles to the house of James 
Bailey, who lived on Brush Creek, near the present New Hope 
Church, he being the nearest neighbor of the Clays. Mitchell Clay, 
before the coming of the Indians, had gone into the woods for 
game, and wounded a deer, followed it until dark, and then re- 
turned to his home and discovered the horrors committed in his 
absence. He discovered the dead bodies of his children and other 
evidences, and supposed all of his family had been killed. He left 



436 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the cabin for the New River settlements by way of the East River. 
During the night he discovered the Indians in his road, who fol- 
lowed him closely until he reached the settlements. They stole a 
number of horses and immediately retreated west of the Ohio. 
Information was immediately conveyed to the various neighbor- 
hoods, and a party of men, under Captain Mathew Farley, among 
them Charles Clay, Mitchell Clay, Jr., William Wiley, Edward 
Hale, John French and others, who went to the Clay cabin, buried 
the bodies of Bartley and Tabitha, and then began a pursuit of the 
Indians. The Indians took the old trail on the Bluestone, across 
Flat Top Mountain, down the divide between Guyandotte and 
Coal, on top of the Cherry Pond Mountain, continuing down the 
west fork of Coal River. The Indians separated into two squads, 
one going down Pond Fork. The whites, not suspecting they had 
separated, seeing the horse tracks, followed on down Pond Fork, 
until they saw the smoke from the Indians' fires 'and heard the 
whistle of a fife. The whites halted in order to confer as to the 
best method of attack. They decided to divide their party, so as 
to place a portion of them below the Indians and attack at daylight 
the next morning, and make the attack from above and below at 
the same time. The whites crept up as close as they could to the 
Indians. All was quiet during the night, and just at break of day 
a large Indian arose from his bed and walked out a short distance, 
and was shot and killed, and thereupon began the attack. 

Two of the Indians were killed and one was wounded and at- 
tempted to escape, and in his broken English begged for his life, 
but Charles Clay, whose brother and sister had been killed by 
them, and had another brother in captivity, refused him quarter, 
and killed him instantly. The remaining Indians fled down the 
river. Mitchell Clay, Jr., was then a boy of sixteen. When the 
attack began, a large Indian rushed toward him. Clay had a large 
rifle gun, too heavy for him to use, and missed the Indian when 
he fired at him. The Indian wheeled and attempted to run off, but 
was killed by another of the party. This fight occurred in what is 
now Boone County, at the head of Little Bottom on Pond Fork on 
Coon's farm. The spot where this battle was fought is marked by 
a pile of heavy stones, carried by the Indians from the mountain 
and piled over the bodies of their dead comrades. The whites re- 
covered their horses, but did not recover Ezekiel Clay, and the 
Indians carried him on to Chillicothe and burned him at the stake. 
Both Edward Hale and William Wiley took from the backs of 
two dead Indians strips of their hides, which they converted into 



HISTORY "OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 437 



razor straps, which remained in their families for many years as 
souvenirs of this battle. After this Indian trouble Mitchell Clay 
moved to New River and bought the land now owned by J. Roily 
Johnson, who recently owned some land in the Pipestem District, 
which he sold to the French Brothers. The house built by Clay 
remains, with the port-holes to be seen. 

Mitchell Clay married Phoebe Belcher and raised fourteen chil- 
dren. One of his daughters, Mary, married William Stuart, and 
the Clays and Stewarts now form a large part of the population 
of Wyoming County, especially the descendants of William Stew- 
art. The courteous clerk" of the county court of that county, A. M. 
Stewart, is a descendant of this William Clay and of this daughter 
of Mitchell Clay. Mitchell Clay died on New River in 1812, having 
sold his Clover Bottom tract to Hugh Innes and his son-in-law, 
Colonel Pearis. 

Mr. Maxwell has held important positions in the management 
of the Republican party and policies in Summers County. As 
stated, he was once chairman of the County Committee, and man- 
aged the affairs of the party throughout that campaign. As is 
customary in these days, it is understood that the chairman of the 
party organization handles and controls largely the campaign funds. 
Maxwell did what few chairmen do, as far as our observation ex- 
tends. All of the campaign contributions were placed by him in 
bank and checked out, and vouchers kept therefor as disbursements 
were made, no contention being made that he had pocketed any 
of the funds, and his manner of doing this business was such that 
he could not be charged with maladministration. He was the first 
mayor of the city of Avis, elected at its incorporation. He was 
largely instrumental in securing the separation of the two cities, 
the citizens of Avis being dissatisfied with the management of 
affairs under the charter which consolidated the two towns. He 
was selected by the citizens of that city as their representative ; 
went to Charleston, stayed throughout the session of the Legis- 
lature, securing the passage of the bill known as "The City of 
Hinton Divorce Bill." In the election of 1904 he did not stand with 
the regular organization of the party so far as it stood by the 
nominations of his party for judge of the circuit court, and he was 
an earnest, active and influential supporter and advocate of the 
Democratic candidate for judge of the Circuit Court for the Ninth 
Judicial Circuit, devoting his time and influence, without money, 
price or compensation of any character. ' In his political actions, as 
in other matters, he is bold, aggressive, and makes no secret of the 



438 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



position taken by him. In the famous Thompson and Fowler fac- 
tional controversy many years ago, he was an active adherent of 
the destinies of the Fowler contention and adherents. At one time 
he was offered a large sum of money for his support by a repre- 
sentative of the Standard Oil Co. to take a different position in 
one of those factional fights, but he was as firm as the Rock of 
Gibraltar. 

R. H. Maxwell's grandfather's language was distinctly broken 
and showed the Scotch accent very perceptibly. Robert H. Max- 
well is the only representative of these old settlers now living in 
this county, and, as stated before, is a man of character, sober, 
industrious and enterprising. In politics, as in other matters, he 
stands up for his principles, and has been from the foundation of 
the Republican party an ardent and faithful Republican, without 
seeking office or political preferment, and an earnest fighter for his 
political principles — fights straight from the shoulder without 
hypocrisy or deceit, and without money and without price. He 
goes into any cause earnestly, without false representation as to 
the position which he occupies. At one time he was chairman and 
made a successful chairman of his party organization in this county. 
If he is for a party, man or principle, he will be found advocating 
the same openly and above board. He now holds the office of 
commissioner of school lands by appointment. 

THE SWOPE FAMILY. 

This is a German ancestry (Schwab or Swab being the original 
German name for what is now known as Swope). The Swopes 
were among the first settlers in Monroe County, Jos. Ulrich, or 
John Ulrich Swope being the ancient and original settler and an- 
cestor of the family in this region of the country. He was the 
second son of Yost (Joseph) Swope, and was born in the town of 
Leiman, in the Duchy of Baden, in 1707. His grandfather was the 
mayor or burgomaster of that town. His father, Yost Swope. was 
born in the same town, on the 22d day of February, 1678, and 
owing to the persecutions of the Lutheran Church, of which he was 
an active member, he emigrated across the seas and settled in 
Upper Leacock Township of Lancaster County, Pa. Here he raised 
a family of five children, all of whom located there except John Ul- 
rich, or Joseph, as he will hereafter be called. We are not positive 
as to his first name, whether it is John or Joseph. The family rec- 
ords show that frequently these Dutch people gave two of their chil- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 439 

dren the same name, and tradition is that he dropped the name of 
John and assumed the name of his older brother, and assumed and 
adopted his father's name of Joseph. The original ancestor wrote 
his name Swab, and it was Americanized into Swope. This Jo- 
seph Ulrich left Pennsylvania and emigrated with the German col- 
ony into the Valley of Virginia, locating in Augusta, near the site 
of the present Swope Depot on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway. 
It was here that his son Joseph was born, on the 11th day of Au- 
gust, 1751. He was of a venturesome disposition, and began ex- 
plorations in the country to the west. In 1750 and 1752, with his 
trusty flint-lock gun, he followed the Indian trail up Jackson's 
River to the mouth of Dunlap's Creek, thence up that creek, cross- 
ing the table-lands into the country where Union is built. There, 
instead of following the trail down the waters of Indian Creek, he 
took a due west course and landed on top of those knobs which 
bear his name to this day — Swope's Knobs — and from there he 
viewed the country. He descended from this mountain into the 
Wolf Creek Valley, and was detected by a party of marauding 
Indians, who followed him, but whom he discovered in time to 
make preparations for his escape. He headed for a large hollow 
poplar tree which stood about a third of a mile west of the present 
site of the Wolf Creek Post Office near the Broad Run Church. 
He managed to crawl into the hollow of this tree and climbed up 
the hollow, bracing himself against the sides, and there remained 
until the Indians gave up the search. He could hear them talking 
and marching around the tree, but they decided it was impossible 
for a man to be inside of it. This tree remained standing until 
1860, when it became dangerous from decay and was cut down. 
After the departure of the Indians he came out of his hiding place, 
and there located a claim to the land round about, and cut his 
name in a beech tree near the spring on the farm now owned by 
Mrs. Cornelius Leach, entered his tomahawk or corn title and 
cut a brush heap at the same place. He then left, and returned in 
a year or two, and brought his wife and son, Joseph, and built 
his house a few hundred yards west of what is known as the Connor 
Spring. In this house he lived, and his son, Michael, after him, 
who was born there on the 29th of September, 1753. This child 
was the first white male child born in the territory of Monroe 
County, if not within the present territorial limits of Southern 
West Virginia. There is a tradition that there had been a girl 
born before this date within that territory, but if so, all history 
thereof is lost. This house built by this pioneer still remains in 



440 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



splendid condition, and it was from this house that his son, Joseph, 
was stolen by the Shawnee Indians in 1756, at the age of five 
years, and kept a prisoner with them near Chillicothe, Ohio, for 
nine years. After formally settling his family in this new home, 
Joseph, the settler, decided to visit his people in Pennsylvania and 
look after his interest in his father's estate. On this trip his horse 
threw him, fractured his leg where it had once been fractured by 
an Indian bullet, and from this wound he died, and where his place 
of burial is not one knows. 

He was a traveler and hunter, and it was Swope, Pack and 
Pitman who were hunting down New River near its mouth, and 
discovered the Indians, who were making for the Jackson's River 
and the Catawba settlements for the purpose of attacking and 
destroying them. These hunters separated, one going to one set- 
tlement and one to another to warn them of the danger, and it 
was this band of Indians that Captain Paul followed. An account 
of his fight with them at the mouth of Indian is given elsewhere in 
this book. The theft of Swope's boy by the Indians embittered 
him towards that people to such an extent that he never let any 
opportunity pass to harrass them or to secure a scalp. This son, 
Joseph, who was taken to the Indian village, was adopted by the 
queen of the tribe, who was said to have been Cornstalk's mother. 
He was treated with royalty and saved from death and many hard- 
ships. An Indian boy one day located a skunk near the camp, and 
induced his white comrade into making an investigation for game, 
the result being that he was thoroughly fumigated. Bent on re- 
venge, and not large enough to whip the Indian, he waited his 
opportunity, and when the Indian boy started to kindle a fire with 
steel and flint, Swope placed some powder where the fire would 
ignite it, and when he got down to blow the smoke into a blaze, 
the powder ignited and blew out both eyes of the Indian. The 
Indian tribe took up the matter, and Swope was sentenced to 
death, and it was here the good offices of the old queen came in. 
She was a silent spectator to his sentence of death ; then she quietly 
exercis'ed her authority, took charge of her adopted boy, and told 
the Indians they had taught him nothing but revenge, and that 
this boy had a right to resent the treatment of the Indian ; so 
saying, she led him to her wigwam, and the sentence was set aside 
and his life saved. The boy was returned to his parents by reason 
of the treaty following the battle of Point Pleasant. He was ex- 
changed and returned to civilization, recognized by his parents, 
and became the ancestor of many people now living. This boy 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



441 



took to civilized life after his return, learned to write, and became 
a prosperous man. On April 3, 1774. he married Catharine Sul- 
livan, a full-blooded Irish woman. She was a woman of strong 
character, and led an eventful life, many of the details of which 
would be interesting to her descendants. She was a fearless pio- 
neer, capable of defensive as well as offensive warfare for the pro- 
tection of her family against the wild beasts as well as the savage 
men. On one occasion six Indians came into her house without 
saying a word, and sat down at the table and ate all she had pre- 
pared. With a grunt of thanks they walked over to the woods in 
the direction of her people. In a few moments she heard the crack 
of a rifle, and directly the Indians returned, and one was carrying 
a large buck which they had killed, and delivered it to her. They 
laid it down by the door, and indicated by signs and grunts that 
it Avas to pay for the dinner. This Joseph and his wife, Catharine, 
raised a family of nine children. George was born August 15, 
1776; Margaret, October 20. 1777: Ruth, December, 1778; Joseph. 
June 20, 1781; Jonathan, January 5, 1784; Catharine, February 12, 
1786; Eleanor, January 3, 1788; Adam, April 23, 1791, and Alary, 
March 17, 1793. Joseph settled in the Wolf Creek country and 
secured a patent to 600 acres of land above where his father en- 
tered his tomahawk right, and there raised his family in the house 
built by his father. Of this large family of early settlers and their 
descendants but few remain in the country of their nativity. George 
moved to Kentucky ; Eleanor married a Burdette and moved to 
Kentucky; Alary married Thomas Casebolt and settled on Locust 
Creek, Pocahontas County. She was the mother of Henry Case- 
bolt, who went to California with the forty-niners and who was 
the inventor of the cable car. Joseph Swope died March 3. 1819; 
Catharine, his wife, died March 12, 1820. Michael Swope, brother 
of Joseph Swope. settled on the head of Hand's Creek, where he 
raised a large family. He died April 25, 1839. Jonathan Swope, 
the third son of Joseph and Catharine, first married Frances Legg 
on the 4th day of January, 1803. They settled on a part of the 600 
acre patent. He was a prominent and useful citizen, inheriting 
the sturdy German traits of his father, with the active determination 
and push of his Irish mother. The children of Joseph Swope by 
his first marriage 'were George W.. Lewis C. Elizabeth, Matilda, 
Catharine and Alary Jane. Lewis C. Swope settled in Madison 
County, Indiana ; Elizabeth married an Argobright and settled 
at Spencer, in Roane County, West Virginia ; Matilda married a 
Johnston and settled in Iowa ; Catharine married Griffith Ellis and 



442 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



died near Bluefield. Mary Jane was twice married, her first hus- 
band being Henry Miller and her second husband, Christian C. 
McGame. They moved to Greenfield, Indiana, where she died a 
few years ago. The third daughter married Joseph Craig, of Nicho- 
las County, and is a literary lady of pronounced ability, she having 
published a book of poems. George C. Swope married and settled 
near his father at the site where his great-grandfather cut his name 
on the beech tree at the Swope Springs. He raised three children, 
one son and two daughters. His son, Caperton Swope, settled in 
Boone County, Indiana. His daughter, Elsie, first married Robert 
Haynes, by whom she had one daughter. Haynes was a brave 
soldier in the Confederate Army, and was captured and killed with 
a large number of prisoners in a railroad wreck while being trans- 
ported to prison. She afterwards married James Alderson, by 
whom she had one daughter, Elizabeth, now deceased. Her hus- 
band, James G. Alderson, and one daughter, Abbey, now live at 
Alderson. Her daughter, Mattie Haynes, married Charles K. 
Thompson, and they live in Alderson. Amanda Swope married 
Cornelius Leach, settled on the homestead of her father, and to 
them were born two boys and three girls. Elmer, the oldest son, 
after graduating at the ' University of West Virginia, taught one 
session as associate principal with William H. Sawyers in the Hin- 
ton High School. He is now engaged as a draughtsman with one 
of the large steel bridge concerns near Pittsburg. Arthur, the sec- 
ond son, married a daughter of J. J. H. Tracy, and is living on the 
farm since the death of his father. Ada married Dr. De Veber; 
Irene married a Mr. Black, and they both live in Monroe County; 
Elsie is unmarried and lives with her mother. Cornelius Leach 
was a prominent citizen of Monroe County, a Confederate soldier 
who fought through the war and an active Republican politician. 
He died in 1906. He was a prosperous and enterprising citizen ; 
four years deputy sheriff under R. T. McNeer, and was six years a 
member of the county court. He was the first man to insist on 
and agitate a revision of the tax system of this State, contending 
that all species of property should be assessed at its true and actual 
value. George W. Swope bore the distinction of being the best 
scribe in his county, and one of the best educated men of his day 
and time. He was for several years a justice of the peace, was a 
careful farmer, and it was said that he was able to walk out in the 
night-time and lay his hand on any tool used on his farm. He died 
in 1871. On January 3, 1850, Jonathan Swope married as his sec- 
ond wife Susanna Roach, widow of M. Roach, her maiden name 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 443 



having been Susanna Siders. To this union was born on Decem- 
ber 28, 1854, one son, Joseph Jonathan Swope, whose father at the 
time of his birth was seventy-one years old and his mother in her 
forty-sixth year. This Joseph Jonathan Swope received such rudi- 
ments of an education as was afforded by the public schools of the 
neighborhood until he was seventeen years of age, when his father 
died on April 5, 1872, leaving him in charge of the farm and the 
care of his aged mother. He gave up the attempt at securing an 
education, except what he could secure from study at home on the 
farm. On the 28th of May, 1873, he married Lucy J., daughter of 
L. J: and Susan (Scott) Burdette. To this union four children 
were born, Ida S., wife of Jacob H. Hoover, of Hinton ; Mary E., 
wife of John W. Cook, of Charleston ; Elsie W., wife of Z. A. Dick- 
inson, of Talcott, and Loxie J., wife of Ethelbert Baber, of Hinton. 
Mrs. Swope died in 1883, and on September 23, 1883, he married 
Nettle Diddle, daughter of M. P. Diddle, of near Union in Monroe 
County. To them four children were born, Nina L., who married 
C. B. Stewart, and is now residing at Northfork, in McDowell 
County; Nellie H., at present postmistress at Thacker ; Joseph 
Buell, who has completed the course in the Hinton High School 
and is at present a student of the commercial college at Charleston, 
and Stella J., residing with her parents in Pineville. 

Mr. J. J. Swope is the' most prominent of the present generation 
of the long line of the Swope ancestry now residing in this section 
of the country. After thirty years of life on the farm of his father 
in the Little Wolf Creek Valley, he abandoned it and went into 
the timber business-. In 1887 he built a portable steam sawmill at 
Ronceverte, on which was placed one of his own inventions; a 
variable friction with only one wheel to use in either feeding and 
gigging the carriage. In 1888 he moved his family and located in 
Hinton, where he continued until 1889, when his mill and entire 
property was destroyed by fire, after which he recuperated and 
again embarked in the mill business with Robert H. Maxwell for 
a short time, but the business proving unsuccessful, it was aban- 
doned. He then entered the law office of James H. Miller, and 
while firing the engine for the Hinton Water Company, began the 
study of law, and after six months of close application was ad- 
mitted to the bar in 1892. He is a gentleman of great mental 
activity. In 1894, through his advice and efforts and in his office, 
a company was organized which established the "Hinton Repub- 
lican," now the "Hinton Leader." In 1902 a fight grew up over 
the leadership of the Republican party in Summers County, and 



444 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



during that campaign he published and distributed the "Yellow 
Jacket" newspaper, which was only intended as a campaign pub- 
lication. It was independent of the Republican organization and 
opposed the ring rule of the bosses. In 1903 he abandoned Sum- 
mers County for more attractive opportunities, and located at 
Oceana, in Wyoming County. He and his son constructed the 
first telephone line in that territory, which was from his office to 
the clerk's office. On September 1, 1903, he took charge of the 
"Wyoming Herald" under lease, which he published until Feb- 
ruary, 1905, when he founded the "Wyoming Mountaineer," a 
Republican newspaper, of Avhich he took entire charge as manager 
and editor, and which has been a successful county paper, its cir- 
culation having arisen to 1,400 copies each week. In the contest 
over the removal of the county seat from Oceana to Pineville, 
which was voted on at the election of 1904, he espoused the side 
of Pineville with his paper, and that town won by a majority of 
fifty votes over the necessary two-thirds required by law for the 
removal of a county seat. This election was declared void for 
technical irregularities on the part of the commissioners holding 
the election. A second election was called in 1905, Mr. Swope again 
espousing the cause of Pineville, and again that town won over 
Oceana, and the court house was removed to the latter place in 
the year 1907. He removed his newspaper office to Pineville, and 
his first issue from that town was March 9, 1906. He brought the 
first cylinder press and the first gasoline engine into that county. 

Mr. Swope still practices law, but his law is secondary to his 
interests and energies devoted to his paper. During his residence 
in Summers County he was an active Republican politician, and 
had much to do with the policies and management of that party. 
It was through his efforts that a city charter for the city of Hinton 
was passed by the Legislature in 1897, consolidating the two towns 
of Hinton and Upper Hinton under one administration. He pre- 
pared in his own handwriting that legislative act. That consolida- 
tion not proving satisfactory, he prepared a bill and aided in se- 
curing its passage, known as the "Divorce Bill," by which the two 
towns were separated and again became two separate municipalities. 
His practice of law extended to the adjoining counties and in the 
Supreme Court of x\ppeals. 

He is a gentleman of intelligence and of enterprise, and his en- 
ergies are usually for the interest of his community at large. He 
is now exercising all of his influence towards securing the construe- 



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HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 445 



tion of a new court house and fire-proof clerk's offices and modern 
jail for his adopted county of Wyoming. 

There are few of the Swope descendants now residing within 
our territory. Jacob H. Hoover, the tinner of Avis, married his 
daughter, and they reside in that town. Another daughter, Mrs. 
Baber, and her husband live in the same town. Another daughter, 
Mrs. Dickinson, and her husband reside at Talcott. They are all 
intelligent, law-abiding people. 

There are a few things of which the Swope ancestors may justly 
feel proud. They are descendants of the original pioneers who first 
settled in this county. From 1678 to 1907 there is no record of any 
of the Swope generation who was ever in prison except as prisoners 
of war. Not one has ever been tried or convicted of a felony in all 
the long line. Not one, so far as I have ever known or heard of, 
has signed his name with a mark, and no hungry person has ever 
gone unfed from their doors. 

The old house built by the original settler on Wolf Creek still 
stands, well preserved. The site on which the hollow poplar tree 
stood in which Joseph Swope hid from the Indians is still marked 
and preserved. A large tombstone stands in the Broad Run church- 
yard with the following inscription : "J ose P n Swope departed this 
life March 2, 1819, in his sixty-eighth year. He was one of the 
first settlers of this country, after having been nine years a prisoner 
with the Shawnee Indians." 

BARGER. 

There were two pioneers within the territory of Summers 
County by the name of Barger who were descendants of the ancient 
pioneers of the Middle New River settlements, and no doubt de- 
scendants of the builders of Bargers Fort. William H. Barger 
married a daughter of Isaac Carden, and purchased from his heirs 
the old Carden plantation, including the Barger Springs. He owned 
another plantation in Forest Hill, which now belongs to John P. 
McNeer, who married his youngest daughter. William A. Barger, 
his son, the merchant of Hinton, was a railway conductor, but aban- 
doned that occupation several years ago, and has been a successful 
merchant in Hinton, having married Miss Vass, a daughter of 
Philip Vass, of Forest Hill and sister of Squire Cary Vass, the 
merchant and justice of that district. He was elected in 1906 a 
member of the County Court of Summers County, which position 
he now intelligently fills. Another son, W. G. Barger, some four 



446 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



years ago removed from the old Barger Springs property to Bell, 
California. The other brother and early settler, J. H. Barger, 
owned what is known as the Taylor farm, in Forest Hill District, 
where he died about the time of the war. He was an enterprising 
citizen and engaged in tobacco manufacturing and raising. The 
firm of I. G. Young & Co. was composed of I. G. Young, one of the 
first settlers of Hinton, and W. A. Barger, and did a general mer- 
cantile business in Hinton for many years. Mr. Young died in 1906. 
His wife was also a daughter of Philip Vass, who was a descendant 
of the pioneers of that name in the Middle New River settlements, 
and who built the Vass (Vaux) Fort. Another of his daughters 
married C. C. Cook, who, with his brother, Hon. M. J. Cook, were 
pioneer settlers in Hinton, and engaged in the butcher business 
about 1880, acquiring large property interests in the town. He died 
in 1907. D. J. Vass, another son, was a railway engineer, and 
died a few years ago in Hinton. 

BRAY. 

Dr. Thomas Bray was born in Burham, England, November 26, 
1826. He died at Talcott December 26, 1875. He emigrated to 
America after his preparation for the practice of the medical pro- 
fession. He was a physician of great accomplishments and an ex- 
ceedingly thorough and accomplished engineer. He made a com- 
plete map of the great West Survey of land in Pipestem District 
and Mercer County. It is an invaluable piece of engineering and 
of priceless value to the owners of that property, and could never 
be purchased. The original is one of the most beautiful pieces of 
art of that character that can be found in any country. Dr. Bray 
married Miss Martha Brown, of Mercer County and lived in that 
county until the building of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, when 
he located at Talcott, dying soon after. His wife was a sister of 
Mrs. John M. Carden. His son, Captain Ed Bray, was a conductor 
on the C. & O. Railway, and a few years ago was overcome and 
suffocated in the Lewis Tunnel in the Allegheny Mountains while 
performing his duties as trainman. An accident occurring, the 
caboose stopped in that tunnel, and he died therein from the poi- 
sonous fumes collected. His son, A. B. C. Bray, spent his early 
boyhood days at Talcott, and was for many years a valued railway 
employee, being station agent at Ronceverte, and is now the cash- 
ier of the Ronceverte National Bank and a business man noted for 
his courtesy and ability. One of the daughters of Dr. Bray married 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 447 



Captain Frank Cox, of Hinton, now one of the most competent of 
railway train dispatchers. Dr. Thomas Bray is buried in the old 
Barger cemetery at Barger's Springs. His widow still lives with 
her children. Captain Ed Bray married a daughter of William H. 
Barger, who now lives in California. 

PACK. 

The ancestor of Samuel Pack was a hunter and trapper with 
Swope and Pitman, and the first heard of him he was at the mouth 
of Indian, and discovering Indian signs, he went to the settlements 
to inform the settlers, and reached there too late, but it led to and 
resulted in the fight of Captain Paul with the Indians at the island 
at the mouth of Indian (which was then known as Turkey Creek). 
This was in 1763. We are unable to learn the name of this hunter. 
Samuel, the settler, was born in Augusta County in 1760, and 
members of this family were found along New River in 1764 be- 
tween the mouth of Indian and the mouth of Greenbrier. 

We insert something of this family's history from Judge John- 
ston's "New River Settlements," and from information given us 
by Mrs. Ellen Shanklin, who was a daughter of Richard McNeer 
and the wife of John Pack Shanklin, now residing near Hamilton, 
Ohio, and whose mother was the wife of Dr. Richard Shanklin, 
and a Pack and from other sources. 

The Packs in America first consisted of several brothers, who 
came across the sea early in the founding of the colony of Virginia, 
but the hardships were such that they returned to England, and 
later three of them returned. Two of them went to the South and 
the other came to Virginia. This one settled in Augusta County, 
and had two sons, one of whom was named Samuel, born in Au- 
gusta in 1760. Pie had seven sons, John, Mathew, Samuel, Bartley, 
Loe, William and Anderson; the daughters were Betsey, who mar- 
ried Jackson Dickinson ; Polly, who married Joe Lively, and Jennie, 
who married Jonah Morris. 

John and Bartley settled at Pack's Ferry, in what is now Sum- 
mers County. Samuel settled on Glade Creek, now Raleigh ; Loe 
lived on Brush Creek, now Monroe County; William went West; 
Polly and Betsey lived in Monroe, and Jennie in Missouri. 

John, who lived at Pack's (Landcraft's and now Haynes') Ferry, 
had a great many troubles with the Indians, and. plowed in the field 
with his gun strapped over his shoulder. General, and afterwards 
President, Hayes' wife was a Pack, and when John Pack, a son of 



448 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Anderson Pack, was captured and taken to General Hayes' camp, 
he recognized him and the family connection, and gave him the 
freedom of the camp at Raleigh Court House. President Hayes' 
wife's mother was Jennie Pack, who married Jonah Morris, and 
their daughter married General Hayes, the Federal soldier and 
President of the United States. 

The Packs are English. Alderman Pack, an ancestor, was a 
member of the Long Parliament, and while a member of Parliament 
moved the Parliament to make Oliver Cromwell Protector. One 
of the Pack ancestors was a general in the English Army and 
fought under Lord Wellington in the Peninsular Wars in Spain 
and Portugal and against the Emperor Napoleon at Waterloo, and 
his name will be found in a history of that wonderful battle. Sam- 
uel Pack, the grandfather of Anderson, was English, and wore the 
English custom-made trousers — knee breeches and frock coat, and 
his hair with a queue. 

The John Pack referred to married Jane Hutchinson, of an old 
Monroe family. His children were Samuel, who married Harriet 
French ; Rebecca, who married Robert Dunlap ; Archibald, who 
married Patsy Peck ; Polly, who married Dr. Richard Shanklin ; 
Rufus, who married Catharine Peters, a sister of Mrs. L. M. Al- 
derson and Mrs. Columbus Wran Withrow; and Julia, who married 
Elliott Vawter. John Pack was a lawyer, and practiced and lived 
in Giles County; Samuel Pack, who married Harriet French, had 
four sons and one daughter. The sons were Captain John A., who 
married Mary Gooch ; Allen C, who married Susan Lugar ; Samuel, 
who married Sarah Douthat, and Charles D., and the daughter, 
Minerva, married Dr. J. W. Easley. 

The children of Anderson Pack were Conrad B. Pack (Coon), 
who emigrated to Kansas ; Samuel B., who also went to Kansas; 
John A., who is living in McCloud County, Oklahoma; Allen C, in 
Kansas ; Loe L., who died at Ansted ; Charles H., now living near 
Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, having entered that territory at its 
opening; he married Louisa S. Skaggs, a daughter of James A. 
Skaggs, of Lindside, Monroe County. The daughters of Anderson 
were Virginia, wife of Dr. John G. Manser; Clara, who married 
E. B. Meador, his first wife, and Kate, who married Captain Bob 
Saunders, of Raleigh. These Packs were Confederate soldiers. 

Among the first settlers of the New River Valley in this section 
was Samuel Pack. The people of this name thirty years ago were 
numerous in this county. The Packs were among the most thrifty 
of the first settlers in all this region west of the Alleghenies, but 




REBECCA PACK, 
Widow of Anderson Pack. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 449 



in recent years, since the Civil War, the majority of the name have 
gone West with the advancement of civilization, into the great 
Middle West. There still remains, however, some families of the 
name in Summers, Fayette and Raleigh Counties, and descendants, 
relations and connections by marriage are still numerous in num- 
bers in the surrounding region, though the name of Pack is not. 
The Packs at one time owned a large part of the most fertile lands 
along New River, including from the mouth of Greenbrier to War 
Ford, on the eastern side of the river, and some of the bottoms on 
the western side, including the lands around the mouth of Blue- 
stone River. Samuel Pack, the original ancestor of the generations 
of this region, married a daughter of Captain Mat Farley, a famous 
Indian scout and brother of Drewry Farley, from whom the pres- 
ent generation of Farleys in this county descended. The other child 
of Captain Mat Farley emigrated while a young man to Indiana. 
Captain Mat Farley at one time lived on Gatliff Bottom, now 
known as the Calloway Barker place. The sons of Samuel Pack 
were John, Anderson, Lowe, Bartley and Augustus. Lowe settled 
in Fayette County, in the Ansted country ; Augustus, in Raleigh 
County; Anderson, at the mouth of Bluestone River, owning the 
Gatliff Bottom, and where Lark M. Meador's widow now resides, 
and on the Jonathan L. and John W. Barker lands. John Pack lived 
on the Rufus Pack place, opposite the mouth of Bluestone River, 
and owned the land from the mouth of Bluestone to the mouth of 
Greenbrier. The children of John Pack were William, who owned 
the lands at the mouth of Greenbrier River, now owned by C. L. 
and A. E. Miller ; Sarah Ballangee, the wife of Lafayette Ballangee, 
the Sam Pack and James W. Pack places. Rufus Pack lived for 
many years on the east side of New River, immediately below the 
mouth of Bluestone ; Archie settled on New River, where the de- 
scendants of A. L. Harvey now live, above the mouth of Indian ; 
Sam, who married Harriet French, lived in Giles County, Virginia. 
The children of John Pack were William, Rufus, the preacher, 
Archie, Sam and Polly, who married Dr. Richard B. Shanklin, of 
Monroe County, father of John Pack Shanklin, who married Miss 
Ellen McNeer, and now lives near Cincinnati, Ohio. He was a 
brave Confederate soldier, who fought throughout the Civil War, 
and now holds a pardon, granted to him by President Andrew 
Johnson, for offenses committed by reason of his being a so-called 
"rebel" soldier. The minister, Rufus Pack, moved with his fam- 
ily to Kansas about 1880. It was his son, John H. Pack, who was 



450 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the first county superintendent of schools of Summers County and 
the first merchant in Upper Hinton. It was over his storehouse 
the courts were held for the county for some time, until that 
building was washed away in the flood of 1878. Rufus Pack had 
one other son, Archie, and several daughters, among them being 
Miss Emma and Miss Clara, who married E. B. Meadows; the 
other daughters and Archie removed to Kansas with their father, 
Rufus. Archie lived to be a very old man, and died near Red 
. Sulphur Springs. His daughter, Malindy, married A. L. Harvey, 
and his son, James emigrated West. Anderson Pack was a large 
land and slave owner ; he married Rebecca Peters, a daughter of 
Christian Peters, who married Clara Snidow. Rebecca Pack was 
born February 14, 1811, near Peterstown, Monroe County, Vir- 
ginia. She married Anderson Pack May 5, 1829, and lived at the 
mouth of Bluestone River until the death of her husband, after 
which time she lived with her daughter, Virginia Manser, and 
moved to the mouth of the Greenbrier River in 1872; thence to 
Hinton in 1884, and then to Burden, Kansas, where she still resides 
with her grandson, Dr. William Henry Manser. She is a very 
remarkable lady, being now ninety-seven years old, retaining fully 
her physical and mental faculties. She remembers, after her mar- 
riage, her father-in-law, Samuel Pack, Charles Gatliff and William 
Wiley, who had all been Indian spies and scouts, meeting at her 
home and talking over their experiences in Indian warfare. She 
remembers that there was a fort on the Gatliff or Calloway Barker 
farm. At one time the settlers were driven from this fort by the 
Indians, the fort burned, and all their property destroyed. It is on 
this bottom that in recent years the prehistoric graveyard was 
washed up from beneath the surface of the earth. After the In- 
dians destroyed this fort, they went up New Piver to Indian Creek 
to the mud fort on Rich Creek. She also remembers the fort on 
Crump's Bottom. A number of the slaves of Anderson Pack and 
the descendants of others still live on New River, and in Hinton. 
Among them is William Pack (colored) , Tandy's children, and 
Allen. There was another son of Samuel Pack named Bartley. 
Samuel Pack owned all the land from the mouth of Greenbrier to 
Gatliff Bottom. Bartley inherited the Landcraft and Dunn places, 
which descended to his children, Miss J. Dunn, who married John 
H. Dunn. Mrs. Isaac Young, Mrs. Emily Landcraft, Mrs. J. M. 
McLaughlin, and Josephus Pack, who was the first clerk of Sum- 
mers County Court, were all children of Bartley Pack. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



451 



Conrad Pack, a son of James W. Pack, of the mouth of Leather- 
wood, a relative namesake of Coon Pack heretofore referred to, is 
another prominent member of the Pack family in this region. He 
is now, and has been for several years, general manager of the 
Buckeye Coal & Coke Company at Bramwell, West Virginia, and 
has represented Mercer County in the Legislature. He has amassed 
a considerable fortune in coal lands speculation and in the manu- 
facture of coal and coke. He is an enterprising gentleman, and was 
for a number of years located at Athens as a partner in the mer- 
cantile business with Hon. Rufus G. Meador. He, like his relative, 
James P. Pack, has departed from the faith of his fathers, and is 
now a follower of President Roosevelt. 

The Captain Mat Farley referred to above was also a scout 
under General George Washington in the Continental Army of 
the Revolution. The only families of the Packs remaining in Sum- 
mers County are James W. and Samuel Pack, who live just above 
the mouth of Greenbrier. Their sisters married Charles R. Fox. 
Lafayette Ballangee and E. B. Meadows (first wife). They were 
children of William Pack, who owned the land at the mouth of 
Greenbrier, as was also Richard, who died many years ago, leaving 
two sons, Evan B. and Erastus, who inherited the Greenbrier Ferry 
property. There were two Pack ferries across New River, one at 
the lower end of the Rufus Pack place near the mouth of Leather- 
wood, where the State road crossed New River, and the other above 
the mouth of Bluestone, on the Landcraft place, over which the 
famous suit of (Tommy Tight) Meadows vs. Joseph N. Haines was 
fought through the court. 

There were three brothers living in the Jumping Branch Dis- 
trict some thirty years ago — James M., Samuel and Preston. Some 
of their descendants still live in that region, but I do not know 
from what branch of the Pack family they are derived. 

James P. Pack, a representative of the Pack family now residing 
in the county, is a son of the first clerk of the county, Josephus B. 
Pack, and a grandson of Bartlett Pack. He is now about forty- 
seven years of age, and is a gentleman of varied accomplishments, 
intelligent and patriotic towards Hinton, the town in which he 
has made his home the greater portion of his life. He was at one 
time a guard at the West Virginia penitentiary; later, under 
Cleveland's first administration, a post office inspector for the na- 
tional government ; later, he studied law, passed the examinations 
with honor, and entered into practice in Summers County in co- 



452 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

partnership with Col. James W. Davis, under the firm name of 
Davis & Pack. Later, he formed a co-partnership with Hon. Wil- 
liam R. Thompson, and practiced the profession for a number of 
years under the firm name of Thompson & Pack. Tiring of the 
law, he later retired from the active practice, and became a travel- 
ing salesman, in which occupation he continues, and has made a 
success, having accumulated a competence. He is a bachelor. As 
a lawyer he was successful, becoming an able, conscientious and 
reliable counsellor, especially in chancery practice. The other chil- 
dren of Josephus Pack were Luke and John B. The former was a 
railway conductor, and was accidentally killed. John B. is engaged 
in the manufacture of lumber in Raleigh County. There was one 
daughter, Miss Emma. The widow of J. B .Pack was a Miss Kate 
Dunn, and, after the death of Mr. Pack, married Mr. Erastus H. 
Peck. She and her husband still reside in Hinton, Mr. Peck having 
been county clerk for twenty-four years, and was the second agent 
of the Central Land Co., having succeeded John H. Gunther, the 
first and only other agent for that corporation in Hinton. There 
is a settlement of Packs in South Carolina and a town called Pack- 
ville, and numerous Packs in that region who are descendants, no 
doubt, of the Pack emigrant who went South. All the Packs in 
all America are descendants of this English stock, as above de- 
scribed, beyond a question. 

Matthew Pack had a son John, who settled in Raleigh County. 
He left surviving him his sons, Samuel, James M., William and 
John, who lived and died in Jumping Branch District, this county. 
John was killed during the war, being shot in the leg, from which 
he died. It was claimed to have been accidental. William's chil- 
dren were John, James M. and Lewis A. Lewis A. is now a resi- 
dent of Jumping Branch, and was the Democratic nominee for 
justice of the peace in 1904, but was defeated by factional differ- 
ences. He has held the position of president of the Board of Edu- 
cation, and is an intelligent gentleman. Preston left one son, Alex- 
ander, who is a telegraph operator at Montgomery. James M. 
was a justice of the peace and a constable, holding each position 
for four years. He died in Jumping Branch. Samuel was the 
owner of the old Little Bluestone Mill and was a man noted for 
his honesty in that community. James M. left surviving him the 
following sons: John A., Chris., William, Lee and Grover. He 
married a Cook as his second wife, his first wife having been a 
Miss Goodall. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 453 



ALLEN HOUCHINS. 

There is another family of Houchins who resided at Indian 
Mills. Allen Houchins, the ancestor, lived at that place for many 
years, and was an honorable carpenter and millwright. His two 
sons, John and Henry, were both millwrights and millers, who, with 
George W. Leftridge and Louis Witt, erected the lower mill and 
were the owners at one time. Henry married a daughter of Rev. 
Henry Dillon, removed to Greenville, in Monroe County, where 
he died in 1905. Another son, John, now lives at Barger Springs. 
Lewis, another son, is a railway mail clerk on the N. & W. 

MANSER. 

John Garfield Manser was born at Monterey, Mass., May 21, 
1822, and came to Virginia in his youth, first to Culpepper Court 
House, later, to Gauley Bridge, where he had an uncle in business 
with James H. Miller. He graduated from the medical college at 
Cincinnati in 1851. He was twice married, his first wife being 
Araminta Dickinson, of Fayette County; his second wife was Vir- 
ginia Pack, of the mouth of Bluestone, then Mercer County, and 
daughter of Anderson and Rebecca Pack. John G. Manser belonged 
to the Fifty-first Virginia Infantry as a surgeon in the Confederate 
Army. After the end of the war he practiced medicine in Raleigh 
and Summers Counties, first on the Flat Top Mountain, where he 
owned a large tract of land now known as the McAlexander place ; 
from thence he came to Summers County in 1872, living at the 
mouth of Greenbrier and Hinton, practicing his profession until 
1884, when he removed to Burden, Kansas, where he died Septem- 
ber 17, 1886. He was an active, intelligent, strong man intellec- 
tually, took an active part in shaping the destinies of the new 
county of Summers ; for twelve years was a member of the county 
.court and justice of the peace, and took an interesting part in the 
educational afTairs. For several years he and Dr. Benjamin P. 
Gooch practiced medicine under the firm name of Manser & Gooch. 
He resided in and owned what was known as the Frank Dennis 
property, at the Upper Hinton Ferry in Avis. He has two sons 
residing in Burden, Kansas, Dr. William Henry Manser, a prac- 
ticing physician (he was at one time sergeant of Hinton and taught 
school there), and John Manser, a dentist, and three daughters, the 
oldest, Miss A. G., who married George H. Prince, a son of the late 
Edwin Prince, of Beckley, and Misses Mary and Virginia. 



454 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



McNEER. 

McNeer is a Scotch name, the original being spelled "McNair." 
The original settler in Monroe County was James McNair, who 
came from near Washington, D. C, in Virginia. He married a 
Miss Busby; his children were Andrew, Valentine, Richard, Keyser 
and Giles, Katie, who married C. Harper Walker, Margaret, who 
married Bartett Powell, and another daughter, who married a 
Smith. All of these children removed to Indiana while young, 
except Richard, who married Elizabeth Maddy, a sister of John and 
Charles Maddy, of Greenville. Richard married in 1810, and set- 
tled on Hand's Creek at the Sulphur Springs, where William Miller 
now lives. His children were Anderson, Richard, James, Augustus, 
Caperton, William B., Polly and Sarah Barbara. Polly married 
William Ryan and Sarah Barbara married William Erskine Miller, 
of Summers County; William B. settled on Lick Creek, having 
-married Margaret Miller, both of whom died about 1868 on the 
William H. Ford land. They left surviving John C. McNeer, who 
lived in Summers County until recently, when he removed to Oak- 
hill, in Fayette County; William N. McNeer now lives in Charles- 
ton. The McNeers were originally from Paisley, Scotland. The 
name is now spelled "McNeer." Hon. A. S. Johnson, editor of 
the "Monroe Watchman," married a daughter of James W. Mc- 
Neer, a son of Major Anderson McNeer, a son of Richard. Richard 
McNeer, a son of James, resides in Forest Hill. His son, John P., 
is the justice of the peace and president of the Board of Education. 
Richard (Dick) was a brave soldier in the Confederate Army. Miss 
Sarah lives at the mouth of Greenbrier. Another daughter of 
James, Mary J., married Major G. W. Goddard, and lives on Lick 
Creek. 

McCULLOCH. 

Samuel G. McCulloch settled in Hinton on the 6th day of May, 
1886. He is a native of Montgomery County, Virginia, born 
February 10, 1864, and on the 28th day of March, 1893, he married 
Mrs. M. E. McCorkle, a daughter of Mrs. Mary McCorkle, who 
was a daughter of Charles Clark, the senior, and grand-daughter of 
James Thompson. John R. McCulloch, Benjamin McCulloch, 
Matthew McCulloch and Frank McCulloch, all brothers of Samuel 
G., settled early in Hinton. John R., at that time, was a locomo- 
tive engineer, and became a citizen in 1877. All the brothers 



I 

HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 455 



located in Bluefield when that town began building, and are now 
bankers, merchants and leading business men of that city. Samuel 
G. McCulloch engaged in the mercantile business for a number of 
years, was elected town sergeant of greater Hinton under the 
charter of 1897, and has filled the office of constable of Greenbrier 
District for eight years, being first elected in November, 1892. His 
mother was Elizabeth Bowers, daughter of Jacob Bowers, who 
was for many years the sheriff of Montgomery County, and re- 
moved to Texas overland during the gold days of 1849. Mr. 
McCulloch now occupies the office of constable and also that of 
city sergeant. He is an active Democrat in politics and takes an 
interest in the success of his party nominees. 

THE FRENCHES. 

This is one of the oldest families of the Southwest Virginia 
country, from which have descended a number of distinguished 
men, both in civil and military affairs. 

The ancestors were from Scotland originally; thence removing 
to Wales, and removing to America many years prior to the great 
American Revolution. 

They first settled in the northern neck of Virginia in Westmore- 
land County, and within the Fairfax grant. John French married 
in Westmoreland County, Virginia, in 1735. Matthew was born in 
1737 from this union. 

The Frenches came west of the Blue Ridge in 1775, among them 
John, and settled in the south branch of Potomac Valley, and 
French Neck is still known on the river, a beautiful and valuable 
body of land. John lived but a short time after this location, and 
his widow married Captain Cresap. This was in the present ter- 
ritory of Hampshire County. The sons of John were Matthew, 
above referred to, who, after his death, fell out with Captain Cresap, 
sold out, and went to Culpepper and married an Irish girl, Sallie 
Payne ; William, James and a daughter, w T ho married John Locke. 

In 1775, Matthew, his wife and seven children crossed the Alle- 
ghenies into the New River Valley, and settled on Wolf Creek in 
what is now Giles County, Virginia, then Fincastle. The sons of 
Matthew were John, Isaac, James and David. John married Obe- 
dience Clay in 1787; Isaac married Elizabeth Stowers for his first 
wife, and for his second^ a Mrs. Fillinger ; James married Susan 
Hughes, a half-sister of William Wilburn. His second wife was 
Margaret Day; David married Mary Dingess; Martha married 



456 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Jacob Straley; Mary married Isaac Hatfield, and Annie married 
Elisha McComas. 

The names of the children of John French by Obedience Clay 
French were William, Ezekiel, Charles C, James, George P., John, 
St. Clair, Hugh, Austin, Annie, Sallie, Orrie, Obedience, Nancy 
and Rebecca. 

Isaac French had the following children: Isaac, Sallie and 
Docey. 

The children of James French by his first marriage were Isaac, 

Reuben and Andrew; Sallie, who married William ; 

Mary, who married Daniel Straley ; Elizabeth, who married James 
Rowland; Isaac married Sallie Straley; Reuben married a Miss 
Meadows, and Andrew married Miss Day, and by the second mar- 
riage James had two daughters, Esther Locke, who married Kinzie 
Rowland, and Martha, who married William Miller. 

The names of the children of David French and his wife, 
Mary Dingess French, were Guy D., who married Arminta Chap- 
man; Napoleon B., who married Jane Armstrong; Dr. David M., 
who married Miss Smoot ; Rufus A., William H. and James H. 
The daughters were Cynthia, who married Judge David McComas ; 
Harriet, who married Samuel Pack ; Minerva, who married Colonel 
Thomas J. Boyd. 

Matthew French, the founder of the French generation in this 
region, died on Wolf Creek in Giles County in 1814. He and his 
eldest son, John, were soldiers in the Revolution under Colonel 
William Preston. Their major was Joseph Cloyd and Thomas 
Shannon, captain. He fought at Guilford C. H., Wetzel's Mill, in 
1781, and in other fights. 

The names of the children of Guy D. French were Henly C, 
who married Harriet Easly ; Mary, who married William B. Mason; 
Fannie, who married J. H. D. Smoot; Sarah, who married Dr. W. 
W. McComas (killed in the battle of South Mills), and then mar- 
ried Captain F. G. Thrasher; Susan, who married Dr. R. T. Elliot. 

Captain David A. French first married a Williams, and on her 
death, Jennie C. Early ; W. A. married Sarah E. Johnson ; Charles 
D. married Annie C. Johnston; William A. died in 1902. 

This family has not been numerous in this county. Napoleon 
B. French, who died a few years ago at Princeton, was elected to 
the Legislature and the secession convention from Mercer County, 
while it included a part of our territory. He was at one time the 
Greenback nominee for governor. His daughter, Miss Eliza, now 
a missionary in China, once taught school in Hinton. His son, Ed 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



457 



French, was an attorney at Princeton, an able lawyer and a cour- 
teous gentleman. Captain John A. Douglas, who for some time 
in the '80's resided in Hinton and practiced law, married another 
daughter. David, another son, resided at Concord Church, cele- 
brated for the "big yarns" he could tell. One of his origin he fre- 
quently told was "That a cold, snowy day in January, while every- 
thing was frozen up, he was cutting and splitting rails. He cut 
and split open a solid and sound oak tree, and found therein a dry 
land frog. Being in the solid tree, it was as flat as a case knife. 
He laid it out on the snow, and after a while it began to inflate 
itself, until it appeared as a full-grown dry land frog, and jumped 
off on the top of the snow crusts." This is a sample of the yarns 
he dispensed to the early students of the normal school in his town, 
of which the writer was one. His son, John Douglas French, 
studied law; another son, James, became a prominent minister in 
the M. E. Church South. His daughter, Miss Minnie, who married 
a Mr. Shields, was the first lady to graduate, at the Concord Normal 
School. Miss Bessie, another daughter, is a teacher, and another 
daughter of David French is an author of note and popularity. 

Captain James H. French was the first principal of the Concord 
Normal School, being a very learned man, noted for his learning 
and eccentricities, as well as his high sense of honor. He was a law- 
yer by profession, but abandoned the profession and took up teach- 
ing. He remained principal of the school until his death — some 
twenty years — and his remains are buried in the school grounds, 
where a handsome monument has been erected to mark his resting- 
place by the students whom he had taught. 

He was a brother of Colonel Napoleon B. French and W. H. 
French, who was a bachelor, and who owned a great plantation 
between Athens and Concord. 

William French owned a farm on Lick Creek, where he died 
several years ago. He married the widow of Henry Gore, who 
was Adeline Keatley. He operated one of the first saloons in Hin- 
ton. 

Wm. A. French owned and lived on the Overton Caperton place 
on Lick Creek. They came to the county from Giles County, Vir- 
ginia. 

The Frenches are scattered throughout the South and West. 
Among them are many brilliant men and women. The men have 
been justices, sheriffs, lawyers, clerks, judges, statesmen and sol- 
diers. 

William McComas, a descendant of Matthew French, was a 



458 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



member of Congress from 1833 to 1837, David McComas an emi- 
nent jurist, and Dr. W. W. McComas a distinguished physician 
and gallant Confederate soldier. Colonel James Milton French, a 
celebrated lawyer, was a brave and gallant Confederate soldier, now 
of Arizona, and practiced law in our courts. He was a candidate 
for the Democratic nomination for Congress in our district in 1888. 
He married Miss Lucy Gooch, a sister of our citizen, the late Dr. 
Benj. P. Gooch. William Wirt French, now practicing law at 
Princeton, is his son. J. A. French, a prominent lawyer of Key- 
stone, West Virginia, is of the same family. 

(See Johnston's History of the New River Settlements.) 

Matthew and John French were soldiers in the American Revo- 
lution, and served in Colonel Wm. Preston's Battalion of Mont- 
gomery Valley. 

SHUMATE. 

Tollison Shumate was one of the earliest settlers in this region 
of the New River Valley. At the formation of Monroe County, in 
1799, we find his name among those named in the military estab- 
lishment of the county as a lieutenant, along with David Graham, 
George Swope and William Maddy, each of whom have direct de- 
scendants in this county at this day. Mat. Farley, Wm. Graham, 
Samuel Clark, Robert Nickell, as captains, who also have descend- 
ants in the county as well. James Gwinn, James Byrnside, James 
Miller, Alexander Dunlap, John Harvey and others, named as en- 
signs. These settlers, along with many others, came into the re- 
gion directly after the Revolutionary War, about 1780 to 1785. 
Tollison Shumate came from Fauquier County, Virginia. 

The Shumates are direct descendants of this Tollison. The di- 
rect descendants who inhabited the county were Anderson and 
Wilson. The latter lived and died at an old age on Crump's Bot- 
tom. Anderson lived at one time on the Mercer Salt Works prop- 
erty of about 1,000 acres, which he owned at the date of his death 
in recent years. He was a very wealthy and prosperous man. The 
sons of Wilson Shumate still living in the regions of New River, 
in the county, are Tollison and S. T. Shumate. Anderson Shu- 
mate was the father of Hon. B. P. Shumate. Rufus H. Shumate 
owned the lower half of Crump's Bottom at his death, and the 
same is still owned by his descendants, one of whom is Carl Shu- 
mate, now residing thereon. Dr. Shumate, a prominent physician 
of Giles County, Virginia, Milton H. and Colonel Henderson Shu- 
mate, who owns and lives on the French farm, between Athens and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



459 



Princeton, in Mercer County. Milton H. is president of the Bank 
of Athens, and has represented Mercer County in the legislature 
for two terms. 

The Shumates are a thrifty and prosperous race, Anderson Shu- 
mate being a man of great wealth, as well as all of his sons being 
men of large property. R. W. Clark, the justice of Pipestem, mar- 
ried a daughter of Wilson, who was also a man of property. B. P. 
Shumate, Jr., a son of Hon. B. P. Shumate, resides at and is the 
present postmaster at True, and is a prominent merchant and 
thrifty citizen. Harrison Shumate, one of the oldest citizens of the 
county, died a few years ago in the upper end of Forest Hill Dis- 
trict, and was a somewhat noted character in his time. 

J. T. Shumate, who married a Ferril about 1900, purchased the 
lower part of the Culbertson (or Crump's) Bottom farm formerly 
owned by W. C. Crockett, for which he paid $14,000. It is on this 
land the Pennsylvania gentleman, about the year 1890, drilled for 
oil 3,000 feet, and found a great supply of gas. His sons Carl and 
Frank succeeded to this farm. The former married Miss Josephine 
Coe Peck, a daughter of ex-County Clerk Peck, and died some 
five years ago. Carl and the son of Frank, an infant of tender years, 
still own the place, which is farmed by the former. 

The Shumate family is of French descent. Daniel Shumate was 
one of the pioneers of Giles County, where he located soon after the 
Revolution. His sons' names were Tollison, Harden, Silas, John and 
Daniel. Tollison first married a Lilly, and then a Green. He had 
five sons — Thompson, Wilson, Anderson, Harrison and Parkinson. 
Anderson, Wilson and Parkinson were the direct progenitors of 
the present Shumate family in this county. Harden married Eliza- 
beth Leach. His sons' names were Edmund, Washington, Kend- 
ley, Daniel, William and Harden. Daniel married a Washington, 
and went to Missouri in 1852. Edmund and Kendley both reared 
families in Giles County. John Shumate went to Ohio in 1825. 
Daniel married an Ellison, and settled on Coal River. He has a 
number of descendants in Raleigh. Kendley Shumate, one of the 
younger generation, is a learned lawyer in Mingo County at this 
date. 

BALLARD PRESTON SHUMATE. 

Hon. B. P. Shumate was born near Parisburg, in Giles County, 
Virginia, on December 10, 1842, and is the son of the late Anderson 
Shumate. At the age of seven years his father located near Mer- 
cer Salt Works, on territory then in Mercer, but which now forms 
a part of Summers County. There Mr. Shumate resided up to the 



460 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



year 1858, when his father removed to near Glen Lyn, Giles Coun- 
ty, Virginia, where Mr. Shumate worked as a farm laborer until 
the breaking out of the Civil War in 1861, at which time he enlisted 
in the Confederate Army in the company of Captain Watts,* and 
was assigned to the famous 22d Virginia Infantry Brigade. In the 
early spring of 1862, the company was reorganized and Mr. Shu- 
mate commissioned first lieutenant, this being the first office or com- 
mission held by him in his career. He continued with this com- 
mand, participating in all .the great battles in which his regiment 
was engaged, up to the Battle of Dry Creek, in Greenbrier County, 
on August 26, 1863, in which he was wounded and disabled from 
service, being placed on the retired list; but later he was commis- 
sioned provost marshal for the southwestern counties of Virginia. 
In 1865, after the close of the war, he located in Pipestem District, 
then Mercer, now Summers County, and in the year 1871 he es- 
tablished a mercantile business at that place, which he has through 
all these years conducted personally and successfully, and without 
an intermission from that date to this day. 

In the year 1872 he was elected deputy sheriff with Evan Hin- 
ton, which office he resigned in 1874. After the adoption of the 
amendments to the Constitution and the present county court sys- 
tem went into effect, he was elected as one of the first commission- 
ers of that body, his associates being Joseph Hinton, of Greenbrier 
District, and John C. McNeer, of Green Sulphur District. At the 
expiration of his term of two years, he was again re-elected for a 
full term of six years. 

In 1892 he was the Democratic nominee for the House of Dele- 
gates, and was elected over L. G. Lowe, the Republican nominee, 
of Forest Hill District. In 1894 he was again the nominee of his 
party, but in the landslide it went to the Republicans in that cam- 
paign. He was defeated by the Hon. M. J. Cook, of Hinton, by 
the small majority of 43 votes. 

In 1898 he was his party's nominee for member of the Legisla- 
ture, and was elected by a very handsome majority. On the 7th 
day of October, 1903, he was commissioned by Governor White as 
a notary public. He is the present secretary of the Board of Educa- 
tion of Pipestem District, and has been for thirty-one years, re- 
gardless of the political complexion of the Board, which elects its 
secretary. He is the present postmaster of Pipestem Postofifice, 
and has been such since July 22, 1879. Mr. Shumate has been one 
of the most successful and enterprising citizens of this county, and 
is identified with its history from its foundation to the present date. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 461 



THE DUNCAN FAMILY. 

John Duncan was one of the first settlers on Lick Creek, in 
Green Sulphur District. It is impossible to give the exact date of 
his location, but it was some time prior to 1800. He was from 
Shenandoah County, Virginia, and married Elizabeth Patterson. 
He died in 1823, and it was at the house of his widow, on the old 
Duncan place on Lick Creek, that the first Baptist Church in that 
region was organized in 1832. He was an Indian fighter, and 
helped to defend the forts in that region. He was the father of 
eleven children, six boys and five girls. The three boys, who were 
known to the writer, were John, being the oldest, who resided on 
Mill Fork, almost in sight of Green Sulphur Springs, where his 
son, Harvey Duncan, now lives, and who married a Miss Adeline 
Hix, sister of John and William Hix, and aunt of Robert Hix. 
Charles married Cassie Alderson, a sister of the wives of David 
Graham and Robert Miller; and Nathan Duncan, who married 
Elmira Crews, of Monroe County. We are unable to ascertain any 
history of the other members of the older family. 

Charles Duncan left two sons, Nathan A. and James, known as 
"Jim Curly," his son, Elliott Duncan, being the present deputy 
sheriff for Green Sulphur District ; and one daughter, who married 
A. J. Miller, now living in Roanoke, Virginia. 

Nathan L. Duncan left surviving him George A. Duncan, who 
lives at the old Nathan Duncan homestead on Duncan's Branch. 
George A. Duncan married Miss Mollie Graham, a daughter of 
James L. Graham. James Sedley Duncan, who was a brave Confed- 
erate soldier, and fought throughout the Civil W ar in the Confeder- 
ate Army, and was desperately wounded at the Seven Days' 
fight, now resides on Lick Creek, and John L. Duncan, who 
married Miss Alice George, a daughter of Tom Lewis George, of 
the Meadows. His daughters were Ellen, Martha and Lucy. Lucy 
married John C. McNeer, who now resides at Oak Hill, in Fayette 
County; Ellen married a Mr. Watson, of Ashland, Ky., who died 
some years ago. and Martha married Charles Connor, and resides 
on Muddy Creek, in Greenbrier County. 

John Duncan, Sr., was understood to be a Scotchman, and was a 
native of that country. 

John Duncan the younger, or second, left the following chil- 
dren : John Hunter Duncan, who is a farmer residing near Elton. 
He has also engaged in saw-milling. He is a very tall, large man, 
noted for his slow speech and slow movements. W. H. (generally 



462 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



known as Harvey), who was disabled when a boy from the disease 
commonly known as white swelling. Marion, who was not of 
strong mind, and three daughters, and Michael — Miss Jerusha, who 
married Mr. John H. Ford, a prosperous farmer and horse trader ; 
Lovey Jane, who married W. L. Stanard, of Webster Springs, and 
Elizabeth, who married Marion Surbaugh, commonly known as 
"Bug," a nickname. 

THE LILLY FAMILY. 

In the year 1640, Cecil Calvert, a younger brother of the Second 
Lord Baltimore, brought about 300 colonists from England, and 
settled at St. Mary's. From some of the descendants of this colony 
originated the largest family now in Summers County, viz., the 
Lilly family. 

About the years 1696 to 1702 was born in what is now the State 
of Maryland a family of three brothers, one of whom went to what 
is now the State of Georgia, and the other two crossed the Alleghe- 
nies. One settled on the Kanawha River below where Charleston 
now stands, and the other, whose name was Robert Lilly, settled 
in what is now Summers County, on Bluestone River, about four 
miles from its junction with the New River, on a bottom now 
owned and occupied by Joseph Lilly ("Curly Joe"), one of his nu- 
merous descendants. This was about the years 1740 to 1750. 

Robert Lilly married a lady whose maiden name was Moody, 
and to them were born four sons, who, together with his wife, came 
and settled with him. The names of these sons were Thomas, Ed- 
mond, Robert and William. 

Robert Lilly, one of these sons, died on Guyan River about the 
year 1828, at the age of 108 years. 

Edmond Lilly lived and died at a very advanced age here in this 
county, the date not known. He was the father of Rev. Joseph 
Lilly, who was an honored minister of the Primitive Baptist Church. 
He also had a twin brother named Edmond. James and Jonathan 
were also twins. John Lilly, who died from the bite of a rattle- 
snake ; Robert, Washington, who lived and died on Mountain 
Creek; Elijah, who spent his days on the great Flat Top Moun- 
tains ; and William, known as "Dr. Bill," who lived near Glade 
Creek, in Summers County. 

The family of Joseph Lilly consists of the following: Ander- 
son, deceased; Hugh, who was the father of Mrs. T. B. Barker, of 
Beech Run ; Alexander, known as "Alex the Jockey" ; Joseph, known 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY/ WEST VIRGINIA. 463 



as "Blind Joe"; Jonathan K., ex-deputy sheriff of Mercer County; 
Isaac, deceased; Henry Lee, deceased; Edmond, Russell and 
Thompson, deceased; as well as several daughters, among whom 
are Mrs. John Roles, now living near Forest Hill, and Margaret, 
the first wife of Robert W. Lilly. 

The sons of Jonathan were Samuel S., Remley, Rufus, Ballard 
P., John E. and Jonathan S. Lilly, known as Togger, several of 
whom are living near Ellison P. O., in Summers County. 

The sons of Washington, known as "Kinney," are James, John, 
Daniel and Henry, as well as several daughters. 

The sons of Elijah are Wm. H., known as "Hickory Bill"; Pres- 
ton, Thomas, James, known as "Jerusalem Jim" ; Russell, Naaman, 
Joseph and Lee H. 

William ("Dr. Bill") had quite a large family. Their names I 
am now unable to give. These, the family of Edmond, all lived to 
a ripe old age, and from them many of the Lillys of Summers, Mer- 
cer and Raleigh trace their lineage. 

From Thomas descended the following: Thomas Lilly, his old- 
est son, who married Delilah Payne, of Taswell County, Virginia, 
and settled on Bluestone River, seven miles from its mouth. He 
was the father of Levi Lilly, Thomas Lilly (who is the father of 
the present county superintendent of schools of Summers County), 
Geo. W. Lilly, Josiah Lilly ("Dick"), Robert Lilly, known as 
"Shooting Bob," and Austin Lilly, the father of ex-county super- 
intendent of Summers County ; J. F. Lilly, known as "Tess," and 
several daughters. Thomas Lilly died in 1884, at the age of 82. 

The next, William Lilly, known as "Taliancher Bill," was the 
father of Lewis Lilly, known as "Bolley Lewis" and William Lilly, 
known as "Preacher Will." Bolley Lewis is the father of Simeon 
Lilly and John Lilly, ex-county superintendent of Mercer County, 
and is known as "John Bolley." 

The next Robert Lilly, known as "Bearwallow Bob," who also 
married a Payne, reared a large family and died in 1883, where he 
first settled, on the Bench of Bluestone, in Summers County. His 
family consists of the following: William, known as "Billy Bear- 
wallow"; Washington, now of Wyoming County, and James M., 
known as "Jim Cute" (who is the father of J. J. Lilly, known as 
"Cud") ; Robert, also living in Wyoming County ; Pleasant H., now 
deceased, and several daughters, the oldest of whom, Julia, married 
Joseph Meador, and Sallie, who married Henley Farley, a member 
of a very large family of Farleys now living in Pipestem. 

William Lilly, the fourth son of Robert, the first settler, was the 



464 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



father of Ameger Lilly, about whom nothing is known. Robert, 
known as "Fighting Bob," was in Louisiana when last heard from. 
Andrew Lilly, known as "Sock Head Andy" ; Tollison Lilly, the 
father of James W., and Geo. A. Lilly, now living on Little Wolf 
Creek ; George Lilly, deceased (never married) ; William S. Lilly, 
known as "Shoemaker Bill," ex-sheriff of Summers County, father 
of Green Lilly; Joseph Lilly, known as "Curly Joe," ex-member 
of the county court, and James Lilly, known as "Grinning Jim." 

Of the sons of Edmond Lilly one was Robert Lilly, known as 
"Squire Bob," who married Mary Cadle, and settled near the mouth 
of Bluestone. To them were born the following sons : David Lilly, 
who died in Kansas not long since ; Captain Jonathan Lilly, who 
died about 1902 ; R. C. Lilly, known as "Miller Bob," who died near 
Spanishburg, in Mercer County, about 1904; Dr. J. A. Lilly, now liv- 
ing at Jumping Branch ; Thomas Lilly, known as "Squire Tom" ; 
Josephus Lilly, deceased, and Samuel D. Lilly, known as "Devil 
Sam," now living near Dunn's, W. Va., as well as several daughters, 
among whom are Julia, who married M. C. Barker, and Rebecca, 
who married Levi M. Neely, Sr., who is the father of L. M. Neely, 
Jr., the present assessor of Summers County. Also from this same 
Thomas Lilly, the son of Robert (the first settler), were the fol- 
lowing other children, viz., Pleasant, John, Turner, Joshua and 
Daniel. 

Pleasant Lilly had four sons — Hiram, John, William, known as 
"Ground Hog Bill," and Christopher. John had one son, whose 
name is John, and known as "Pence John," living on the Bench of 
Bluestone. Turner had several sons ; not much is known of their 
family. 

Joshua had one son, William David. Daniel had only one son, 
whose name was Daniel. 

It is an interesting fact to note that Robert Lilly, the first Lilly 
west of the Alleghenies, died in 1810, at the ripe old age of 114 
years, and his wife died in 1807, at the age of 111 years. 

The first relationship between the Lilly and Meador families 
was occasioned by the marriage of Josiah Meador, one of the first, 
if not the first, minister west of the mountains, marrying a daughter 
of the elder Robert Lilly, and since that time they have married and 
intermarried, until their histories in many cases blend very closely 
together. 

This Rev. Josiah Meador was the father of Green Meador, who 
settled, lived and died at the mouth of Little Bluestone River. 
John Lilly, the son of Edmond Lilly, was the father of the 



I 





HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 465 



following children : Wilson, Lewis, John, known as "Gentleman 
John"; William H., known as "One Arm Bill," and one daughter, 
who married a Cook, and who is the father of Harvey Cook, ex- 
sheriff of Raleigh County. 

William Lilly was the father of the following children, viz., 
Andrew Lewis, now living near Jumping Branch ; Perry, Y\ idson, 
John H., known as "Barlow John," and two other brothers, who 
went West, and died in 1884 and 1886; as well as several daughters. 

To Lewis Lilly was born the following children, viz., Joshua, 
now living near Jumping Branch; Dayton, who married Miss Sarah 
Ellison, and lives in Mercer County; R. P., deceased; J. A., Ed- 
mond and Robert, known as "Kansas Bob," all living in Summers. 

John ("Gentleman John") had no children, although married 
twice. 

William H. ("One Arm Bill") had the following children: John 
P., Jackson, Hugh, Hamilton and George. This entire family is 
living near Jumping Branch. He also had two daughters, one of 
whom married W. H. Dunbar, and now lives near Foss, this county. 

James Lilly, and his twin brother Jonathan, were sons of Edmond 
Lilly. James had the following children: John W., known as "Big 
John"; William, know as "Limber Bill" (the father of James L. and 
Thomas W. and Mrs. S. L. Deeds, of Madam's Creek) ; James, 
known as "Beaver Jim" ; Lewis, Harman, Green W. and G. T. 
Lilly, knowm as "Tanner," all of whom live near Cave Ridge, in this 
county. He also had two daughters, Mrs. A. J. Martin and Mrs. 
Emily Hogan. 

To Edmond Lilly, the twin brother of Rev. Joseph Lilly, was 
born the following: Allen, known as "One Eyed Allen" ; James, 
known as "Shady Jim," who now lives in Oklahoma, and is the 
father of C. H. Lilly, near Elk Knob : John R., of Hinton, and P. 
G. Lilly, known as "Pet," of Raleigh County. He also had three 
daughters — Mrs. Albert Farley, of Kansas, and Mrs. Prince, of 
Beckley. The third daughter is now dead. John. Hence, now in 
Indiana, and perhaps there are some others, but as they are out of the 
county, we are unable to reach them. 

It may be interesting to know that in Summers Countv there 
are 285 tax-paying Lillys, to say nothing of the numerous children 
and ladies who are not on the tax rolls. A conservative estimate 
would be no less than 1,450 in the county, to say nothing of this 
numerous family outside the limits of the county and in adjoining 
counties, all originating from only one family. Hence the impos- 
sibility of giving anything like a biographical sketch of all this fam- 



466 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ily. It has been the aim of the writer to give only such part of the 
history that any one desiring may trace his lineage for several gen- 
erations, and keep in touch with the family history, and enlarge 
upon special branches. 

As noted on another page, the Rev. Josiah Meador, who mar- 
ried a daughter of the elder Robert Lilly, was probably the first 
Baptist minister in this part of the country, and to him is probably 
due the honor of organizing the first church, which is known as the 
•'Old Bluestone Church." It was organized in a grove two miles 
above the mouth of Little Bluestone, prior to 1800. Later an old 
log church was erected wmere Squire John H. Lilly now lives, and 
at which church the people assembled monthly for divine worship, 
and from the mouths of good ministers, such as the Rev. Josiah 
Meador, Elder Matthew Ellison, Rufus Pack and others, heard and 
partook of the bread of life, and prepared themselves for the future 
life. 

Here many of the Lilly family worshiped, lived, died and are 
laid to rest in the old Bluestone churchyard, to await the sound of 
the last trumpet. 

In the latter part of the last century the old church was reor- 
ganized, and was moved to Jumping Branch, where the records of 
the old church may still be found. From this old Bluestone Church 
has emanated many new churches, among which is the old Rocky 
Mount Church at Pipestem, which was organized by Elder M. El- 
lison, soon after the late war. 

Recently another church has been organized where the old 
church met, and a neat new church edifice has been erected, with 
a thriving membership, composed in part of the descendants of the 
old Bluestone Church, which calls to mind very forcibly the lines 
of Knox, in which he says : 

For we are the same our fathers have been, 
We see the same sights our fathers have seen; 
We drink the same stream, we see the same sun, 
And run the same race our fathers have run. 

ROBERT W. LILLY. 

One of the oldest citizens of the county is a man with a record. 
He is a farmer, and has a reputation for being a man of considerable 
bravery. He has acted as special officer in a number of criminal 
'cases, one of which we recollect was in a case where he held a ca- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 467 



pias against Jack Bragg, who was accused of some infraction of the 
law, and who had been evading it for a long time. He was accused 
of selling liquor without a license. Mr. Lilly took the capias and 
got after him, and undertook to arrest him. Suspicioning some- 
thing Bragg took to his heels. Coming to the Big Bluestone River, 
he jumped in and swam across, although it was in midwinter, the 
river up and mush ice floating, making his escape. He is now a 
peaceable citizen of the county, and has been engaged as an assist- 
ant deputy marshal for quite a while in the arrest of moonshiners. 

Robert W. Lilly, who is known as "Shootin' Bob," shot what 
was at the time thought to be a deputy marshal, but was George 
W. Shrewsbury, sometimes known as Lilly. Lilly, however, mi- 
raculously recovered. He was shot in the body, in the Jumping 
Branch country, and is still living. He was a LTnion soldier during 
the war, and draws a considerable pension from the United States 
for his services in that army. Lilly was never tried for the shooting 
until about fifteen years afterwards, when the witnesses were dis- 
covered, and he was tried, and was acquitted. His son Naamon 
lives near Hinton, in Jumping Branch. His grandfather; T. J. Lilly, 
is a constable now of Jumping Branch. Lilly, and the aforesaid 
Shrewsbury (Solesberry) shot Josiah Lilly, and was acquitted, as 
there was no desire to prosecute him. 

FRANCES LILLY. 

This lady was born on Big Bluestone, on the 17th of February, 
1815, and raised at the mouth of Pipestem, then Giles County, Vir- 
ginia. Her father's name was Matthew Pack, who owned one hun- 
dred and twenty-five acres around the mouth of" that riyer. Her 
grandfather's name was Samuel Pack, who came to that country 
with a man by the name of Gatliffe, who was from France. Sam- 
uel Pack settled on Brush Creek, where he died. Her mother was a 
.Moody, her grandmother Pack being a Farley, who lived to be 105 
years old. Mrs. Frances Lilly is now living, and remembers seeing 
many Indians after there were no more hostilities between them 
and the whites. They would come to Samuel Pack's, her grand- 
father's, and say they were on their way to Washington City. 
There they would get drunk, and Pack would give them liquor to 
see them dance and shoot their bows and arrows. They would put 
up dimes to be shot at, and when they hit them they would get the 
dime. The Indian women didn't get drunk. The Indians claimed 
to come up New River from near the Ohio, and passed on up 



468 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Brush Creek once a year. They passed up the river on the oppo- 
site side from where Alderson Pack lived, on New River. They 
wore feathers and other things in their hair. In the early days of 
her recollection the country was thinly settled, and the settlers 
would go twelve and fifteen miles to a log-rolling, starting before 
daylight and taking their guns, killing deer, bear, panthers, wolves 
and other wild animals, and return home after supper. The coun- 
try was then full of all kinds of these and other wild animals. She 
helped to kill them in her young days. Their clothes were all made 
of flax and hemp, and they had no mails or postomces. She tells 
of a preacher by the name of Lorenzo Dow, who visited this region, 
and how he ran the hunter outlaws out of the country, who came 
there hunting and helped themselves to the settlers' property. 

Mrs. Lilly is now ninety-one years of age, and resides with her 
kinsman and son-in-law, Squire John E. C. L. Hatcher, of Jumping 
Branch. Her mind is as active and bright as ever, and she made 
us these statements from her own lips. She was the mother of Mrs. 
Hatcher. 

LILLY. 

Charles Henderson Lilly was born February 19, 1859, and mar- 
ried Miss Lavelett Ann Ballard, of Monroe County, a daughter of 
John C. Ballard, May 22, 1882. He is a son of James Edmund Lilly, 
and lived "where J. E. C. L. Hatcher now lives, in Jumping Branch 
District. His father and mother now reside in Arkansas, at Pea 
Ridge. C. H. Lilly resided in that State also for four and one-half 
years. He now resides on Elk Knob Mountain, and is engaged in 
farming. In 1896 he was elected constable of Greenbrier District, 
which position he held for four years. In 1900 he was a candidate 
for the Democratic nomination for sheriff of Summers County, but 
was defeated by H. Ewart. He is at this time again a candidate, 
with fair prospects of success. He is an enterprising gentleman, 
one of the best farmers in the county, and a Jefferson Democrat, 
and a descendant of the ancient Lilly family of the county. 

GEORGE W. LILLY. 

George W. Lilly is a native of Pipestem District, in Summers 
County. He was born on the 30th day of July, 1859. He was 
educated in the public schools and by private tutors. He is the most 
prominent school man and educator in Summers County, and has 
taken a great interest in the success of the free school system. He 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 469 



has held the office of county superintendent for two terms of four 

years each, the first in and the second in 1900. He married 

a daughter of William Ball, the old settler on the New River hills, 
about two miles from Hinton, and a sister of Thomas E. Ball, Bal- 
lard Preston Ball and John W. Ball, and a sister of Mrs. Elijah 
Lilly, a prominent farmer and teacher who lives on Leatherwood, 
near Hinton. Lother L. Lilly, a son of George W., is a trusted 
employe in the National Bank of Summers, of Hinton. Prof. T. E. 
Ball, assistant principal in the Hinton High School for several terms, 
and at one time candidate for the Democratic nomination for county 
superintendent, and a son of John W. Ball, is a nephew of Mr. 
Lilly. Mr. Lilly is an active Democrat, and takes an active inter- 
est in his party's affairs in the county and State. He has been a 
delegate to the Wheeling, Parkersburg and Huntington State Con- 
ventions, and to practically all of the congressional and senatorial 
conventions held within his district within the last twenty years. 
He is a man of tremendous physique, standing six feet six inches m 
his socks, and weighs 250 pounds ; a man of character, education 
and ability, who has made his way from the ground floor. He has 
for a number of years been appointed by the courts to make county 
settlements with the sheriff ; the settlements for the city of Hinton ; 
making off tax tickets, tax books and property books ; is a notary 
public, and has held many positions of trust. His other children 
are Grace, who married K. E. Smith, superintendent of the Fort 
Defiance Coal & Coke Co., of Gauley Bridge; Ada Mary, Cecil W. 
and Myrtle. 

The daughters of Wm. Ball are Nancy, who married Reyburn 
Buckland; Hulda, v/ho married Ward Meadows, and Mary Ann, 
who married Jacob A. Epperly. Wm. Ball married Diena Cadle. 

Robert C. Lilly, "Miller Bob," married Virginia Gore. He and 
Captain Jonathan Lilly married sisters. He raised a family of six 
sons and five daughters, to whom he has given eleven good farms. 
Their names are David G., J. A., Ida, L. M„ Ruhama, V. F., C. J., 
R. C, Jr., Zach and A. A. David G. married Estiline Thompson, 
a daughter of Philip Thompson. J. A. married Arminta, a daughter 
of James Lilly, and resides on Little Bluestone. His daughter 
Amanda married M. B. Moyes. Mary, another daughter, married 
Professor Beecher Meadows, a school teacher and farmer, and an 
active Democrat, now running the race with C. H. Lilly as his 
deputy for sheriff of Summers County. Arthur married a Cooper, 
a school teacher and farmer. 



470 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Ida, the oldest daughter of R. C. Lilly, married Chas. B. Ash- 
worth, who resides on Flat Top Mountain. 

I. L. married Victoria, a daughter of James and Sarah Hogan, 
of Summers County. 

M. B. married Jonathan F. Lilly, who w T as once county superin- 
tendent of the county, and was killed by Tony Meadows. 

The youngest son of R. C. Lilly is A. A. Lilly, an attorney-at- 
law of Beckley, West Virginia. He was born March 25, 1878. He 
graduated at Athens in '98, took the law course at S. N. U. in Ten- 
nessee, and married Miss Mary Glenn, of Arlington, Ky., June 16, 
1900. In 1900 he was elected a member of the House of Delegates 
from Raleigh County, being the youngest member of that body. 
He was assistant clerk of the Senate of West Virginia in 1903. He 
was elected prosecuting attorney of Raleigh County in 1904, which 
office he now holds, and is an active, energetic and able lawyer and 
prosecutor. He, as the majority, if not all of his family, is an active 
Republican, and he is one of the leaders of this party in his county. 
Emma married Chapman Wills, of Raleigh County. V. F. mar- 
ried Henry, a son of James Griffith. C. J. married Arthur B., a 
son of Simeon Lilly. R. C, Jr., married Miss Hattie Reed. Zach 
married Miss Dora Richmond, of this county. He is a school 
teacher and miller, and now lives near Spanishburg, in Mercer. 

T. H. LILLY. 

Thomas Hubbard Lilly is a native of Raleigh County, being a 
son of Thomas Edmund Lilly, and was born on May 23, 1868, near 
the foot of the great Flat Top Mountain. His father was a promi- 
nent farmer in that section. The subject of this sketch remained on 
his father's farm until he was fifteen years old, but not being pleased 
with a farmer's life, decided to look for something better, as he 
thought, and wandered into the New River hills, working at saw- 
mills and as a day laborer in all kinds of work required in the log- 
ging and manufacturing of timber into lumber, until he reached 
his majority. He worked for many days at fifty cents a day, and 
paid his own board. Finally, he w r as enabled to secure an interest 
in a sawmill, which he operated for local trade, being able to sell 
his product at one dollar per hundred for first-class lumber, and 
forty cents a hundred for the lower grades. Finding the lumber 
business, under these circumstances, unprofitable, he again retired 
to the farm and tried farming again for a period of two years, then 
removed to Hinton, where he secured employment at the stone- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 471 



mason's trade; later, with D. C. Wood, the contractor, he purchased 
the old Gibson carpenter shop. In May, 1895, he purchased from 
Cook & Burkes a small sawmill and machinery at the price of 
$1,139.50, agreeing to pay for same in five months. By his energy 
he succeeded in making this payment. He operated this mill until 
the spring of 1897, when he engaged in a general mercantile busi- 
ness at Dunns, West Virginia, and later, engaged in the sawmill 
business at Flat Top, with a branch store at Odd, West Virginia. 
This business was not profitable, and in the spring of 1899 he pur- 
chased a new sawmill and machinery and operated the same in 
Dickinson and Wise Counties, Virginia, sawing practically on con 
tract for John A. Taylor & Co., of this county, who failed in busi- 
ness in the fall of 1900. 

Air. Lilly has had many ups and downs in his financial career, but 
has always been exceedingly enterprising and industrious. In 1901 
he began operating a lumber business in the city of Hinton, to which 
he gave his entire time and energy and good business judgment, 
from which he has accumulated a handsome fortune. He has been 
operating over a territory which had been culled from for the last 
twenty-five years, and, remarkable to say, has been able to find 
much good timber near the line of the railroad, which had been 
overlooked by pioneer lumber dealers and timbermen. His whole- 
sale trade now embraces all of the territory of Greenbrier, Poca- 
hontas, Monroe, Summers, Fayette and Raleigh Counties, shipping 
to the Eastern and foreign markets. The first shipment in his pres- 
ent trade was purchased by him from John S. Kellogg, of Elk 
Knob, this county, and shipped from Don station. 

At this time he has Handsome offices in the Ewart-Miller Build- 
ing in the city of Hinton. He owns a handsome home formerly 
occupied by B. L. Hoge ; he is a stockholder in the Bank of Sum- 
mers and a director in the Hinton Hotel Company, active, energetic, 
reliable and responsible. He is president of the New River Land 
Co., Hinton Steam Laundry, and president and general manager 
of the Lilly Lumber Co. 

In a difficulty with Creed Meador, he was shot through the 
body, at Dunns, in Mercer County. His recovery from this wound 
was very remarkable, by reason of the character and the seriousness 
of the same, but from which he has suffered continuously to the 
present time. 

Mr. Lilly is one of the successful business men of the city of 
Hinton. His father still resides on the old farm at the foot of Flat 
Top Mountain, and is one of the honored Confederate soldiers 



472 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of the Civil War. Mr. Lilly has three brothers, Everett W.. Wm. 
Lnndy and Grant. His mother was Abagail Turner, of Patrick 
County. Virginia. His grandfather's name was Elijah Lilly, and 
was a descendant of the original Robert Lilly, the pioneer settler of 
that name in this region. 

GREENLEE LILLY. 

Greenlee Lilly, now a resident of Florida, was born two miles 
and a half from Tumping Branch, and is a son of "Shoemaker 
Bill" Lilly, the second sheriff of Summers County. His son Green- 
lee, served four years as his deputy, beginning when seventeen 
years of age. He also later served four years as deputy sheriff 
for Harrison Gwinn, being equally interested in that office. He 
married a daughter of Charles Clark, Miss Emma, who died within 
a few years after. For a number of years he engaged in farming 
after retiring from office. During Cleveland's second administra- 
tion he was appointed to an office under the general government in 
Washington city, and later was made a policeman at the capitol, 
which position he held for over four years. Retiring from that posi- 
tion he engaged as traveling salesman for the first wholesale grocery 
company ever established in Hinton, the Hinton Grocery Company. 
He was an active promoter and one of the principal persons who 
organized the New River Grocery Company, with which he en- 
gaged for a number of years as traveling salesman, after which he 
retired and removed to Florida on account of his health, and for 
the last four years has been engaged as a traveling salesman in 
that state, making his home at Oceola. In January. 1908. he mar- 
ried Mrs. Smith, of Hot Springs, Virginia. 

Mr. Lilly is an active, energetic and intelligent gentleman and 
one of the descendants of the original ancestor, Robert Lilly, who 
founded that great family in this region. 

LEE WALKER. 

Lee Walker is an enterprising citizen of Hinton, who has made 
his own way in the world. He was born in Boone County, West 
Virginia, on the 12th of September, 1872, and is a son of John 
Thomas Walker, a native of Boone County and of English descent. 
On the 23d day of October, 1893. he married Miss Florence G. Cook, 
a daughter of John H. Cook, of Old Sweet Springs, in Monroe 
Countv. He located in the city of Hinton. December 21, 1891. and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 473 

engaged as a brakeman on the C. & O. Ry., and later he became 
agent for the Standard Oil Company in Hinton and surrounding 
territory, which position he has held for several years, being in 
charge of the distribution of the products of that great corporation 
in the region round about Hinton. In 1896 he organized the New 
River Milling Company, a corporation which is now doing a large 
business in the manufacture of feed, with its headquarters and 
mills in Hinton, its business now averaging $10,000 per month. His 
corporation has erected a large three-story brick milling plant in the 
lower end of the city of Hinton, and of which corporation he has 
been the general manager from its organization until the present, 
and which position he fills with ability, fidelity and intelligence. 
The leading citizens of the city are stockholders in the enterprise, 
including Robert R. Flannagan, president; C. B. Mahon, vice-presi- 
dent; H. Ewart, secretary, and E. W. Grice, John Richmond, J. H. 
Jordan, A. E. Miller, C. L. Miller and others. 

Lee Walker is a Democrat, but not an office-seeker. He takes 
an active interest in the success of his party. He now owns valu- 
able property on the Court House Square, at the triangle on the 
corner between Avis and Hinton, at the junction of the two towns. 

MAHON. 

Captain Charles B. Mahon is the only citizen of that name in the 
county, and is one of the pioneers of Hinton, and a veteran railway 
employe, but retired from railway affairs several years ago, and 
has become one of the leading and enterprising citizens of the coun- 
ty. Since retiring from railroad work he has been engaged in mer- 
cantile affairs and other business enterprises. He is a native of 
Hanover County, Virginia. At the close of the war his father's 
plantation was devastated and in ruins, and laid waste by both ar- 
mies, and all labor gone, so that young Mahon had to start on the 
ground floor and work his way up therefrom. He made his way on 
foot to the Kanawha River during the construction of the C. & O. 
Ry., and began labor in a stone quarry in Montgomery, having 
walked overland through the mountains, across the Alleghenies by 
White Sulphur and on. On the completion of that railroad he en- 
gaged as a brakeman, and was later promoted to conductor, run- 
ning from Montgomery to Hinton. He finally abandoned railroad 
work and began the mercantile business, having in the meantime 
married Miss Carry Scott, a daughter of the veteran hotel man, 
Hiram Scott, who operated the New River Hotel on the present 



474 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



site of the Chesapeake Hotel until his death, being one of the first 
hotels opened in Hinton when it was a village. Captain Mahon 
is one of the pillars of the Presbyterian Church, and it is largely 
indebted to him for its steady development, growth, popularity and 
influence. He has amassed a handsome fortune, being vice-presi- 
dent of the National Bank of Summers, and one of its principal 
stockholders from its formation. He is interested in the New River 
Milling Co., Greenbrier Springs Co., Hinton Water, Light & Sup- 
ply Co., and largely interested in other leading local enterprises. 

ADKINS. 

One of the oldest families of people in all this region of the 
New River -Valley was that of Adkins, or Atkins. They are said 
to have come into this region during the time of the Revolutionary 
War, and were first discovered living under cliffs on the Summers 
side of the river from New Richmond Falls, supposed to be the 
magnificent cliffs in the canyon at the mouth of Laurel Creek which 
empties into New River half a mile from the mouth of Lick Creek 
at New Richmond Post Office. They were hunters and trappers 
in the earliest days, and have so continued as long as there was 
game in this region, and there are descendants scattered one place 
and another throughout this region and adjoining counties. Once 
in a while you find a member of the generation rising above the 
common level, but no great advancements have been made in the 
race. There was Parker Atkins, a man noted for his nose, the end 
of it being half the size of a man's fist ; Riley Atkins, known as the 
"Chestnut Mountain Lawyer" ; Leonard Atkins, living in the Chest- 
nut Mountain country; Albert Atkins, one of the most intelligent, 
lives near Hinton. Hen Atkins, one of the race, was drowned in 
Laurel Creek with L. M. Alderson's wedding suit on. Mr. Alder- 
son was married twice, and this was the suit he had purchased for 
his first marriage. He said that he sold a steer to secure this broad- 
cloth suit. Sometimes the name is spelled Atkins and sometimes 
Adkins. The Gills were supposed to have come into the country 
about the same time and to have lived about the same way. The 
Gills and Atkins have intermarried. There is an intelligent family 
by the name of Atkins now residing in the Little Bluestone country 
of a different generation. A thriftless, harmless, indolent, unam- 
bitious race of people as a race, but without malicious cunning or 
dangerous, indigenous races are the Gills and Adkirfs. Possibly 
the ancestors were Tories who emigrated into this then fastness to 
escape military service. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



475 



MICHAEL N. BREEN. 

Mr. Breen is one of the brave soldiers who wore the gray, and 
fought for the "lost cause" — one of the bravest of the brave. Col- 
onel Wright w r as his chief in command at the battle of South Moun- 

-tain. His captain was the gallant William McComas, of Giles Coun- 
ty, Virginia, whose widow still survives and lives near Newport. 
General Reno, the Indian fighter of the West, commanded the Fed- 
erals. Breen was a gunner in charge of his gun, named by him 
"Old Kate" ; J. Mat. Peters was his sergeant. A desperate on- 
slaught was made by Reno at this fight at South Mills, in South 

" Carolina, to capture the Confederates while marching through the 
Dismal Swamp. The Federals outnumbered the Confederates two 
to one. Wright made a stand, placing two pieces of McComas' 
battery in a narrow road, one being a rifle cannon, "Old Kate," 
while Reno's forces had six guns in an open field. After eight houis 
of incessant cannonading — a regular artillery duel — the uncon- 
querable spirit of the brave and fearless Confederate gunners, Mike 
Breen and Mat. Peters, with their cool and accurate aim, disabled 
the Federal guns, and drove them from the field under the protec- 
tion of their fleet, which lay anchored in the bay. Seven or eight 
Confederates were killed and twenty wounded. Reno lost three 
hundred of his men. and a great amount of his equipments. The 
brave Captain McComas was killed and the ammunition of his men 
exhausted. Colonel Wright then gave orders to his men to retire. 
Peters and Breen refused to do so. They were attacked by a crowd 
of Zouaves. Twelve charges of cannister had been reserved to meet 
this charge of the Zouaves. Breen and Peters waited patiently 
until they came within thirty yards, when Breen gave the command. 
Their enemies were paralyzed and stood still, and "Old Kate" 
belched forth her missiles of death, and there the attacking squad- 

■ ron met its Waterloo at the hands of these fearless men, who re- 
mained masters of the field, and limbered their guns and took their 
seats on the limber chests. Here Sergeant Peters was shot and bad-, 
ly wounded, and was placed in an ambulance by Breen and carried 
away. The battle and little army were saved by the bravery of these 
two gallant soldiers, who never met again until very recently, and 
both are now gray-headed veterans of the "lost cause." Breen 
fought throughout the war. A very affecting scene was the meeting 
of these old comrades-in-arms, after a lapse of forty years. Breen 
and Peters were ordered court-marshaled for refusing to obey orders 



476 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

and give up their guns at this fight ; but of course the order was 
never executed. They saved the battle, and were not likely to be 
cashiered and shot for disobeying orders. Captain Breen, as he is 
now usually called, remembers, and talks of "Old Kate," his rifle 
cannon, as he would of a loved member of his family. Captain Mc- 
Comas was a very estimable and gallant gentleman. General R. E. 
Lee, in his correspondence, speaks in highest terms relative to this 
battle, and as having known him (Captain McComas) personally, 
and of his good qualities. He was killed by a minnie ball, and his 
men, who had fought for four hours with the most indomitable 
courage, were thrown into despair at his fate. 

Mr. Breen is a native of Kerry County, Ireland, and emigrated 
to this county sixty-six years ago. He was one of the "bosses" 
that constructed the Big Bend Tunnel, and was so engaged for the 
four years of the building of this tunnel. He was a stone mason by 
trade, but for the last few years of his life, being in comfortable 
circumstances, has devoted himself to agriculture. His father, after 
emigrating to this country, was a contractor on the old James River 
Canal, and the family resided for some time in Botetourt County, 
Virginia, then in Giles County, from where M. N. Breen enlisted in 
the army of the Confederacy. He fought in the battle of the Wil- 
derness, Seven Days' Fight around Richmond, and all of the great 
battles of that war. His gun, "Old Kate," was the only one saved 
from the fight at Elizabeth City, where he fought all day. There 
were thirty-two pieces of artillery in Captain McComas' corps. He 
crossed the ocean in a whaling vessel, which required six weeks in 
the passage. After the construction of the C. & O. Railway, he 
married Miss Sarah Ballengee, a daughter of Isaac Ballengee, who 
once owned the land on which Hinton is built. They have eight 
children, four sons and four daughters— Walter, George, Richard 
and Mike ; the girls being Mary J., Nancy, Ellen and Nora. He now 
resides in comfort on his farm on Tug Creek, a short distance be- 
low Hinton, and is a respected citizen. He occupied the position 
of road surveyor for a number of years, school trustee, and is an 
active supporter of the Democratic policies. 

An ode of a Confederate soldier to his faithful old gun, which 
he called "Kate," by M. N. Breen: 

"The Zouaves who charged, in double quick strain, 
Whilst making the charge, were mostly all slain ; 
To their sorrow and dismay, they thought it no fun 
Charging bold rebels who manned the old gun (Kate). 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 477 



The few who escaped made a very bad run, 

As Kate belched her last greeting, at setting of sun ; 

The undaunted old warriors who mann'd the old gun (Kate), 

Had announced to the world the battle was won. 

The missiles of death, belched forth by old Kate (cannon), 
Were accurately sighted, although it was late ; 
The angels from heaven, hovering around the old gun (Kate), 
Cheering the bold rebels till the battle was won." 

CLARK. 

One of the kindliest "old-time" gentlemen it has been my good 
fortune to know and number among friends is Charles Clark, now 
residing in Mercer County, near the Summers line, at Tophet Post- 
office, but for many years a citizen of the county, and one of the 
pioneer enterprising generation now fast passing away. He has al- 
ways been a big-hearted, loyal, honest citizen, having for his own 
financial good too much confidence in the integrity of his fellow- 
citizens. 

Mr. Clark was born near Maiden, in Kanawha County, Virginia, 
now West Virginia, May 20, 1824, and in his youth followed steam- 
boating on the Ohio River ; but his principal occupation for many 
years, and until about 1870, was that of boring and developing salt 
wells. In 1849 he removed into Mercer County and began pros- 
pecting for salt, a'nd first examined the present place known as Mer- 
cer Salt Wells property for a company (Kinney, Eskridge & Co.) 
of Staunton, Va., beginning his investigations May 26, 1849. After 
concluding his investigations there, he rode horseback to Staunton, 
Va., to make his report on same. Upon this report he was provided 
with the necessary funds, and Mr. Clark sent to Cincinnati, Ohio, 
to purchase the equipments for boring the well. By September 1, 
1849, the equipment was in place, and the well completed within 
ninety days after the first lick was struck, and salt water struck in 
sufficient quantity to produce fifty bushels of salt per day at a depth 
of 600 feet. The boring was continued until 800 feet in depth had 
been reached. In those days the machinery and manner of boring 
were crude, the power being entirely horse-power. The plant for 
making the salt was then erected as quickly as the supplies could 
be provided. The first salt was produced in the spring of 1850, and 
was manufactured continuously until 1861, when the entire plant 



478 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



was burned down by bushwhackers in sympathy with the Union 
forces, or Union citizens, the property then being owned by the late 
Anderson Shumate. 

The property was later rebuilt in 1862, by Mr. Clark and Wm. 
Crump, and operated until 1866 continuously, when the enterprise 
ceased to be profitable on account of scarcity of fuel, and was per- 
manently closed down, and there is now nothing to show for this 
once celebrated and widely known enterprise except a large stone 
smokestack still standing. People secured salt from this "furnace" 
for many miles, carrying it away in wagons, boats, old-fashioned 
batteaux, and on horseback. During the last years of the Civil War 
salt sold for $5.00 per bushel in Confederate money. People from 
the Green Sulphur neighborhood carried salt from this well on 
horseback, a distance of forty miles, as well as from Kanawha in 
wagons after the war. We paid $9.00 per barrel for the salt. A 
team would transport a load of wheat or bacon to the salt wells, a 
distance of 160 miles, and exchange it for salt, return and sell it for 
that price per barrel. One barrel in those days would usually last 
an ordinary Lick Creek farmer a year, or longer. After the railway 
was built, it suddenly dropped from $9.00 to $2.50. 

Mr. Clark, after he abandoned the salt manufacturing business, 
engaged in the lumber business and farming, and is now spending 
his old age on a farm on the Mercer line. His children have all 
grown to manhood and womanhood. He was first married to Ar- 
thelia Thompson, a daughter of Captain James Thompson, whose 
murder is detailed in another section of this book, on the 23d day of 
March, 1852. By this marriage he reared a family of ten children, 
seven of whom are still living. His first wife died May 10, 1876. 
He was again married on the 13th day of April, 1884, to Mrs. Mary 
J. McCorkle, another daughter of Captain Thompson, her first hus- 
band having died several years before, leaving two sons, James Mc- 
Corkle, who was engaged in the drug business at Hinton until his 
death, several years ago ; the other John T. McCorkle, who is now 
residing with his mother, he having been a great traveler ; traveled 
over the entire West and Northwest, occupied in mining and pros- 
pecting, being a mining engineer by profession. He volunteered in 
the Spanish-American War, was seriously wounded in the Philippine 
Islands, while serving his country in those faraway islands, engaged 
in aiding Uncle Sam with powder, etc., in the work of assimilation 
of which we read so much. Mr. Clark now resides on the old 
Captain James Thompson homestead. 

He at one time owned the fine farm at the mouth of Big Blue- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 479 



stone River, now owned by John W. Barker, and there for many 
years his generous hospitality and real old Virginia geniality was 
enjoyed by the public for miles around. His latch-string always 
hung on the outside to all who passed his way. In the early days, 
his hospitable mansion was the resting-place of many a footsore and 
weary student making his way to or from the Concord Normal 
School, as in the old days many of us took up our grips and walked 
to and from those old halls of learning, and many of us remember 
when we stopped with Mr. Clark, because, first, we did not have 
the "change" to pay for a night's lodging; and secondly, because 
we knew there would be no charge if we had an abudance. We 
knew we were welcome with Mr. Clark, without money and with- 
out price. 

Mr. Clark's children were Charles Allen, who was superintendent 
of free schools of the county, and later graduated in law at the 
West Virginia University, and is now located in the practice of his 
profession in the city of San Francisco, having married Miss Ella 
Haynes, of Monroe County. He has been a great traveler ; was 
elected to a judgeship in Washington State, and also prosecuting 
attorney, which positions he resigned for more attractive occupa- 
tions. Lewis, a jeweler of Radford, Virginia, and Joe, a soldier in 
the United States Army in the Philippines ; Lizzie, who married 
A. T. Maupin, of Athens ; Nannie B., who first married L. W. Bruce, 
an enterprising pharmacist, and after his death the Rev. Harvey 
McLaughlin, an eloquent minister, and most excellent citizen of 
Summers; Emma, who married G. Lilly (she died several years 
ago; Mr. Lilly is now residing in the State of Florida, and is 
engaged as a traveling salesman) ; Lucy, who married John Wise, 
a locomotive engineer on the C. & O. Ry., and who was killed by 
being overcome by the deadly fumes in the Big Bend Tunnel; and 
Jennie, who married Captain Charles Schweichert, a passenger con- 
ductor on the C. & O. Ry., were his children. 

THE FOWLER FAMILY. 

The Fowler name is no more mentioned among those of the 
residents of the county, but no complete history of our territory 
would be perfect without mention of this illustrious family. The 
impress of a family of people with the strong characteristics of the 
Fowlers will be felt in any community in which they have made 
their habitations. 

The founder of the Fowler family in this State was Dr. Thomas 



480 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Fowler, who died at his large and elegant old-time Virginia planta- 
tion "Indian,"' as he named it. on April 2, 1858, in the 60th year of 
his age. He was born in the State of Tennessee, having been a na- 
tive of Cocke County. When quite a young man he located at 
Tazewell, Ya., and later emigrated to the mouth of Indian Creek, 
then in Monroe County. He married Priscilla Breckenridge Chap- 
man, daughter of Isaac Chapman, of Giles County, Ya. She died 
at the age of 73, at "Indian. " She, as well as her husband, figured 
in the trials and events of the early settlement of that land, and in 
the events of the early settlements of the progress of peace and or- 
der and society there. 

She was a pattern of the noble womanhood bred in her day. She, 
like her cotemporaries. rose to a peculiar dignity of character that 
was imparted to the exigencies of the early days and the brave part 
they sustained in social life. Trial and familiarity with the prac- 
tical philosophy of a daily life gave strenth and nobility of mien to 
female virtue and grace. Mrs. Fowler was an estimable lady — a 
member of that community of brave and admirable ladies. Dr. 
Fowler's plantation was located on the thoroughfare much trav- 
eled in ante-railroad days, being on the old -Red Sulphur Turnpike, 
and among the wayfarers in that day were the leading people in 
politics, commerce and public concerns generally, and the beautiful 
residence of Dr. Fowler gave rest and recreation to the fatigued 
traveler, which gave the place a widely spread fame. Dr. Fowler 
lived at Tazewell from 1826 to 1835. the date of his emigration to 
the land now known as AYest Yirginia. and of Summers County. 

Dr. Thomas Fowler was a direct descendant of the English Fow- 
lers, among his ancestors there having been the Lord Mayor of 
London, and another, an English Episcopal bishop of that name. 
Dr. Fowler's grandfather came to America direct from England. 
He was an eminent physician, became a large owner of slaves, and 
acquired into one plantation a large part of the territory around 
Indian Creek, on which he erected a fine brick mansion on a beau- 
tiful eminence overlooking the New River, and almost opposite the 
Crump mansion on the noted Crump's Bottom, across the river. 
This brick mansion is still standing, and will stand for ages. The 
walls are very thick, of brick and mortar, with fine locust doors 
and wundow facings, and dressed stone basements. The building 
is located on one of the most beautiful natural locations in all the 
country. 

The lands of Dr. Fowler have been divided up. and are now 
held bv manv farmers. The mansion, with about 150 acres of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 481 



home place, is now owned by Mr. Tabor, of Arkansas, who pur- 
chased from Captain C. R. Price some three years ago. Chas. A. 
Baber. Ward Simms, Dr. Wykel and a number of others own the 
remainder of the lands. 

At the time of the Emancipation Proclamation of President 
Lincoln the estate of Dr. Fowler owned a number of slaves, who, 
with their descendants, reside in the county, among them is Susan 
Muse, who lives in Hinton, and her son Samuel. Hon. I. C. Fowler, 
a few years ago learned accidentally that Susan's lot in Hinton 
was advertised for sale for non-payment of taxes. He immediately 
sent the writer a check to redeem the lot. and something for Aunt 
Susan besides; Patrick Lee was another of his slaves, with Oliver 
Lee and Amy Banks, his children, who live in Hinton at. this time ; 
Willis Dickinson, Beverly Stanard and others of his slaves now live 
at Stockyards. A number of these colored people remained long 
after their emancipation at the Fowler place, and were loath to 
leave their old masters, so greatly were they beloved, and some 
remained with them on the old place until the last of the Fowler 
descendants had parted with the last remnant of the estate. Patrick 
Lee and his wife, "Aunt Sallie" (the latter still living in Hinton). 
were deeded about 150 acres to enable them to spend their old age 
in comfort, free and without a cent's pay, by the children of Dr. 
Fowler, Mrs. Pearis, Mrs. Johnson and Hon. I. C. Fowler, so 
kindly did they feel towards these faithful servants. 

Dr. Fowler left surviving him six children, Hon. I. C. Fowler, 
of Bristol and Abingdon, who died in 1905 ; Dr. Allen Fowler, who 
died in May, 1902, in Salt Lake City, where he located after the 
war. having accumulated a large fortune and acquired a great 
reputation as a physician and surgeon. 

Hon. I. C. Fowler was five times elected to the House of Dele- 
gates of Virginia, and was the Speaker of that body. He was a 
politician of character and a statesman of ability — stumped the 
State in the days of the Funders and the Readjusters ; was one of 
the trusted followers, counsellors and lieutenants of Gen. William 
Mahone in his political career in the Old Dominion. He, with his 
brother, Elbert Fowler, founded the "Bristol News," a newspaper, 
at Bristol, Virginia-Tennessee, and was its chief editorial writer 
for many years. He was a brilliant, forceful and clear-cut writer. 
He was later appointed by Judges Paull and Bond as clerk of both 
the LL S. District and Circuit Courts, which positions he held until 
his resignation on account of failing health, when his son-in-law. 
Stuart F. Lindsay, was appointed as his successor. He was a 



482 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



soldier in the Confederate Army and a Republican in politics. 

The second son of Dr. Thomas Fowler died in Texas in 1867. 
The third son, Hon. Elbert Fowler, died in Hinton, March 21, 1884. 
A more extended sketch will be found elsewhere in this book. 

There were two daughters, Amanda L., who married Dr. Thos. 
Pearis, died several years ago; Mary, who married Hon. James D. 
Johnston, also died a few years ago; he was one of the eminent 
lawyers of Southwest Virginia. The only child of Dr. Fowler now 
living is Mrs. Amanda Pearis, who resides in Roanoke, Va. She 
had two children, Fowler Pearis, a mining engineer of note, who 
recently died while in the employment of the Norfolk & Western 
Railway Company; and Miss Louise, who resides with her mother 
in the city of Roanoke. Hon. I. C. Fowler left no sons. Dr. Allen 
Fowler was never married. Hon. Elbert Fowler left two sons, 
Bailey and Elbert, who are now citizens of Georgia. The daughters 
of I. C. Fowler are Mrs. Stuart F. Lindsay, Mrs. Mary Louise 
Preston and Mrs. Priscilla Chapman Fowler Goodwyn. 

ELBERT FOWLER. 

Hon. Elbert Fowler was a native of Summers County, son of 
Dr. Thomas Fowler, born at the mouth of Indian Creek, "Indian," 
in Monroe County, on the 24th of November, 1843, and was 
of a family of two sisters, Mrs. Mary Johnson and Mrs. Amanda 
L. Pearis ; and two brothers, Hon. I. C. Fowler and Dr. Allen 
Fowler. 

Hon. I. C. Fowler was a Confederate soldier and made his home 
in Virginia after the war, he and Elbert Fowler founding the 
"Bristol News," and later, he was Speaker of the House of Dele- 
gates of Virginia for five terms, and afterward appointed clerk of 
the United States Court, and resided at Abingdon, which position 
he held until near the date of his death within the last twelve 
months. 

Dr. Allen Fowler was also a Confederate soldier, who immedi- 
ately after the war emigrated to Salt Lake City, Utah, and became 
one of the most celebrated physicians of that country, and died 
but recently, a wealthy man. 

Elbert Fowler joined the Confederate Army when a boy about 
eighteen years of age. He was educated partly at Emory and. 
Henry Colleges, and after the war he went to McGill University, 
Montreal, Canada, where he graduated. Returning, he and his 
brother, I. C, founded the "Bristol News" at Bristol, Tennessee 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 483 

and Virginia. Later, in the year 1871 or 1872, he founded the 
"Border Watchman" at Union, Monroe County, West Virginia, 
which is still existing, and is owned and edited at this time by the 
Hon. Albert Sidney Johnston, as the "Monroe Watchman," which 
is one of the ablest edited papers and one of the most reliable in 
the State or any other State, Mr. Johnston being one of the most 
chivalrous and true-hearted citizens of any commonwealth. 

Elbert Fowler received from Andrew Johnson a pardon for his 
transgressions as a Confederate soldier. After disposing of the 
"Border Watchman," he took up the practice of law, which he 
pursued until his death, on March 21, 1885, making his home at 
the mouth of Indian Creek on the old Fowler homestead. At the 
date of his death he and James H. Miller were partners in the law. 
Mr. Fowler was one of the brightest lawyers and most loyal of 
men it has ever been my good fortune to be associated with or 
to know. A comparatively small portion of his time was spent at 
the mouth of Indian after he applied himself to his profession, 
being counsel for the Norfolk & Western Railway Company for 
the last several years of his life, and much of his time was spent in 
Virginia looking after the interests of that corporation. 

He was elected prosecuting attorney of this county in 1874, and 
served four years ; was a candidate for re-election against the Hon. 
W. R. Thompson at the election held in 1878. Mr. Thompson, on 

the face of the returns, had a majority of votes. Mr. Fowler, 

believing that the election had not been fairly conducted and that 
irregularities existed, instituted a contest in the courts, which was 
fought through the county and Supreme Courts for some time, when 
the differences were compromised, and Mr. Thompson was per- 
mitted to retain the office for the full term. 

A law partnership was formed between Mr. Fowler and James 
H. Miller on the first day of October, 1883. The latter was elected 
prosecuting attorney at the election held in 1884, and Mr. Fowler 
qualified as his assistant, which position he continued to hold until 
his death. 

On the 12th day of March, 1885, Mr. Fowler came to Hinton, 
from his farm at Indian, a distance of sixteen miles up New River 
from Hinton, stopping at the office of the firm at the court house 
for some time, and then went to his hotel for dinner (the old brick 
Central Hotel, which was afterwards burned), after which he 
started to return to the court house, when he met J. S. Thompson, 
an attorney, at the crossing of the alley on Second Street, just 
below the new hotel of the Hinton Hotel Company, which is now 



484 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



under construction. When Fowler was at the middle of the cross- 
ing and Thompson about twenty feet above on the sidewalk, they 
coming towards each other, Mr. Fowler having a bundle of law 
books under his arm, Mr. Thompson drew a revolver and began 
shooting at him. Some four or five shots were fired by him, two 
of which took effect in Mr. Fowler's leg between the knee and 
ankle, breaking the bones in two places and shattering that part 
of his leg, the breaks of the bones being about four inches apart. 
Fowler drew a small derringer, about four inches long, from his 
pocket, and shot as he fell, but missed his mark. Fowler fell to 
the ground, and was carried to his room at the Central Hotel, 
where he was attended by a number of the most skilled surgeons 
in the country, including Doctors S. P. Peck, of Hinton; Dr. Isaiah 
Bee, of Princeton, and Dr. McDonald, of Union. 

It was not thought at the time that the wounds would prove 
fatal, and Mr. Fowler would not consent to having an amputation 
performed, but after four or five days it was apparent that the only 
hope of saving his life was to amputate the foot. This was done 
two or three days before his death, but it was too late ; blood 
poisoning had set in, the bones of the leg having been shattered, 
and on the 21st he died from the result of the wound. A day or 
so before his death a mistake was made in the administering of his 
medicine, by wrongfully administering a poison called aconite, 
which mistake was shortly afterwards discovered and the effects 
counteracted, but resulted in weakening the patient. This mistake 
was made by an attendant, an old gentleman, Wm. B. Wiggins, who 
was greatly distressed by reason of his unintentional carelessness, 
Mr. Wiggins being an earnest friend and admirer of Mr. Fowler. 
It was claimed at the trial of Thompson, later, that this mistake 
aided in producing the death, and was set up as a part of the defense. 
Mr. Wiggins was deeply pained OA^er his mistake, and at the trial 
as a witness he was subjected to a very bitter attack by the at- 
torneys for the defense, especially Captain R. F. Dennis, in argu- 
ment to the jury, the character of which will be well remembered 
at the time by those who heard it, and a part of which is of a nature 
not to be preserved in print, which language was regretted by Cap- 
tain Dennis in cooler moments. 

A coroner's jury was held after the death of Mr. Fowler, and 
Mr. Thompson was charged with his murder, and indicted and 
tried. The feeling of a very large portion of the county was much 
aroused against him , the prominence and connections of the parties 
naturally made strong partisans. Bail in the penalty of $25,000.00 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



485 



was granted by Judge Holt, the circuit judge at the time, which 
was easily given, the bondsmen being C. L. Thompson, Col. J. G. 
Crockett and A. B. Perkins. 

At the first calling of the case Judge Holt vacated the bench, 
and the hearing came on before Judge Frank Guthrie, of the 
Kanawha Circuit. A motion was made for a change of venue by 
the defendant, which was vigorously opposed by the State. Af- 
fidavits were filed by the accused to show that the prejudice of the 
people was so strong against him in the county that he could not 
get a fair and impartial trial ; counter affidavits were filed by the 
State to the contrary, but the court held that the case should be 
removed to another county for trial, which was accordingly done, 
and the case was removed to Lewisburg, the county seat of Green- 
brier County, the place of former residence of Mr. Thompson, and 
where a number of his relatives resided, who were prominent citi- 
zens in the community. A great many witnesses were summoned 
for each side, some twenty or twenty-five, and great interest was 
manifested in the trial throughout this section. The defense claimed 
by Mr. Thompson was principally on the grounds of self-defense, 
threats by the deceased against Thompson being proven, the prin- 
cipals in the tragedy having been on unfriendly terms for a number 
of years, and not having spoken for some four or five years. 

At the trial the State was represented by Hon. John W. Ar- 
buckle, of Lewisburg, appointed by the court to prosecute, as the 
prosecuting attorney of that county. Mr. John A. Preston was a 
relative of Mr. Thompson, and had been engaged for his defense 
after the removal of the case to that county. Gen. Frank P. 
Blair, of Wytheville, Va., who had been a former attorney-general 
of that commonwealth, and James H. Miller, the then prosecuting 
attorney of Summers County. 

The defendant was ably represented by United States Senator 
John E. Kenna, Gen. J. W. St. Clair, of Fayetteville ; Col. James 
M. French, of Princeton ; Col. J. W. Davis, Capt. R. F. Dennis, 
Hon. John A. Preston and Capt. A. F. Mathews, of Lewisburg, 
one of the ablest array of attorneys that ever defended any man in 
this State or in any other State. 

There were two trials. The first occupied two weeks, result- 
ing in a hung jury. A second trial was afterwards had and oc- 
cupied a similar length of time, which resulted in the acquittal 
of Mr. Thompson, the jury being out only a few minutes. Mr. 
Arbuckle occupied in his argument for the State two hours and 
a half; Gen. Blair, five hours at the first trial. The attorneys ar- 



486 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



guing the case for the defendant were Senator Kenna, Captain 
Dennis, Colonel Davis, General St. Clair, Colonel French and Mr. 
Preston. Jas. H. Miller did not argue the case, being a witness 
examined for the State. 

Mr. Thompson was crippled in one limb from a natural de- 
formity, from which he had suffered all his life. Mr. Fowler 
weighed about 140 pounds, had been badly crippled in the capital 
disaster at Richmond, Virginia, at the time of that catastrophe, 
by having one leg shattered and his scalp torn off. This was about 
the year 1870. 

Mr. Thompson continued to reside in Hinton until about the 
year 1903 or 1904, when he located at Beckley for the practice of 
his profession, but soon afterwards died at his father's residence 
in Huntington, West Virginia. 

Mr. Fowler was a most excellent and enterprising citizen, and 
at the time of his death was engaged in a number of enterprises 
for the development of this region of his State, one of which was 
for a construction of a branch of the Norfolk & Western Railway 
from the mouth of East River, in Giles County, down New River 
to Hinton, for which a large part of the right of way had been 
secured and paid for. He was a promoter of the New River Rail- 
road and Mining Company, and proposed a railroad up New River. 
These enterprises lapsed after his death. He was one of the pro- 
moters of the Hinton Steamboat Company, which proposed to 
navigate New River from Hinton east. 

The Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company had become very 
antagonistic to him, and in his last race for prosecuting attorney 
fought him at the polls, and did its utmost to encompass his de- 
feat, by reason of his independence of corporate influence and 
faithfulness to his constituents, and to the great mass of the com- 
mon people. This antagonism also grew out of the fact that Mr. 
Fowler had been largely instrumental in compelling the arching 
of the Big Ben Tunnel, near Talcott. When first constructed, this 
tunnel was arched with wooden timber, which after a few years 
became decayed and began to fall in and endanger the lives of 
passengers and employes. A short time before he retired from the 
office of prosecuting attorney a crew on a freight train had been 
caught in the tunnel by falling rotten timbers from the arch, and 
a number killed and crippled. Fowler as prosecuting attorney had 
a coroner's inquest held, the tunnel condemned and the railroad 
company held responsible. Soon after this the arching of this great 
tunnel was begun, and continued for a number of years until com- 



HISTORY OF. SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 487 



pleted, and to Mr. Elbert Fowler is due the honor of changing 
that hole from a death-trap into safety. 

As a prosecutor he was vigorous and determined. He was a 
man of high and honest aspirations and instinct, a true and loyal 
friend, an excellent and faithful lawyer, and an open enemy. His 
great misfortune was that of a violent temper and strong preju- 
dices. His death was a great loss and most keenly felt, not only 
by the public, the county and State, but personally by the author 
of this book, who had enjoyed his friendship and assistance at a 
time when it was most valuable, and it is with pleasure an honor 
and a duty for him to pay some tribute to his character and man- 
hood. 

On the 28th of November, 1878, he married a Miss Bailey, of 
Griffin, Georgia, and left surviving him two boys, Elbert and 
Bailey, who are now grown men, but have never made this State 
their residence, being reared in the- State of Georgia, at their 
mother's home. Just before his death Mr. Fowler executed his last 
will and testament, which is a matter of record in the clerk's office 
of this county. He made a dying statement. At the trial Mr. 
Thompson did not take the stand as a witness in his own behalf. 

Sleep on, brave soldier, in the endless battle of man ! 

If immortality be the crown of lofty aims and noble work, 

Then thou hast immortality. 

That the killing of Mr. Fowler was in cold blood is borne out by 
his slayer, who told to a number of people from his own lips that 
he shot Fowler to kill him, and detailed his actions and the manner 
of the killing, saying that he "shot too high thejirst time, and the 
second shot he aimed at his heart; but that his crutch slipped and 
he hit him in the leg." It was a killing without legal justification. 

Last will and testament of Elbert Fowler: 

I, Elbert Fowler, desire that all my just debts be promptly 
paid as possible, and first among my debts I desire that a debt I 
owe to my sister, Mrs. A. L. Pearis, be paid, and to that end I di- 
rect that my executrix shall sell at public or private sale, as she 
may deem proper, both my personal and real estate. 

I bequeath to my beloved wife, Mrs. Mary Bailey Fowler, all 
my real estate and personal, wherever located, whether in the 
State of West Virginia or Virginia ; some mineral lands in the 
counties of Pulaski and Montgomery, Virginia. I desire that my 
wife shall associate with her in the settlement of my estate James 



488 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



D. Johnson, a lawyer and my brother-in-law, in the county of 
Giles, Virginia. I desire that the executrix of my estate shall give 
no bond as such executrix. 

I desire that J. H. Miller, my law partner, shall close up any 
business of mine that he has in hands, and that he shall give 
no bond. 

In testimony whereof I here set my hand, this March 22, 1885. 

ELBERT FOWLER. 

Witnesses : 

J. C. M'DONALD, 
W. F. M'CLUNG, 
A. G. FLANAGAN, 
JAS. H. MILLER. 



DAVID HUGHES. 

One of the first settlers in all this land was William Hughes. 
He was a Loyalist, and so continued, and to escape military service 
in the American Army, hid himself in the wilds of Pipestem Dis- 
trict on the w r aters of Bluestone River. The high kwob in that 
region, Dave's Knob, was named for David Hughes, which is some 
seven or eight miles west of Athens. He had a hiding place on the 
top of this knob. He was a giant in size and strength, and on one 
of his expeditions he caught a cub bear, which, by its outcries,, 
brought its mother, which fiercely attacked him, seizing him by 
the left arm. He succeeded in dispatching the bear by striking it 
in the ribs with his fist. Afterwards he moved into Wyoming 
County and had some thrilling experiences with the Indians on 
the Clear Fork and Guyandotte Rivers, one especially about where 
X Jesse P. O. is now located, but I have not been able to secure a 
sufficiently authentic account to detail it here. He afterwards re- 
turned to the Pipestem country and founded the Hughes family, 
which is now scattered all over the land. William Hughes, his 
descendant, died in recent years at Pipestem. He was a prominent 
man, justice of the peace and the owner of lands. His son, Gordon 
L. Hughes, at one time owned the Pipestem mill and a large 
boundary of land, and was engaged in the cattle and lumber busi- 
ness, and placed the present plank fence around the court house 
about 1885. He was also a man of considerable literary talent, 
being engaged as a schoolteacher and at one time a candidate for 
school superintendent, but is now a resident of Arkansas. Another 



» 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 489 

brother, Hugh J. Hughes, was a merchant in Hinton for a number 
of years, and now resides at Beckley, Raleigh County. His son, 
G. J. Hughes, resides in Hinton and is engaged in the mercantile 
business, as is -also his brother, Edward Hughes. H. M. Hughes 
was a deputy sheriff and jailer and died in 1905. He married a 
daughter of Captain Mark M. Miller. Wm. Hughes married a 
Jordan. The Hughes of modern clays have been prominent and 
good citizens. G. J. Hughes is an active and energetic gentleman. 
They are active in the councils of the Democratic party and are 
Methodists in their religious beliefs. David Hughes, the founder 
of the Hughes family in this region, was a native of North Carolina, 
and when the Revolution of 1776 began, he came to this wilderness 
to avoid service in the American Army, being a loyal supporter of 
King George the Third. 

GOTT. 

One of the first settlers in Hinton was John R. Gott, who first 
located in what is now the city of Avis, then Upper Hinton. He 
is a native of Mercer County and a son of Andrew Gott, of that 
county. Andrew Gott was a brave Confederate soldier. John R. 
Gott was a carpenter and the first undertaker who ever located 
and who has successfully operated his business in this city. He 
married a Miss Carr, daughter of Captain Carr, of Mercer County. 
His son, Andrew, who married a Miss Smith, is a resident of Hin- 
ton, W. Va. A daughter, Miss Sallie, married S. O. Fredeking, the 
locomotive engineer of Hinton, and another daughter, Miss Nellie, 
married Dr. Palmer. Miss Mary Gott, a sister of John R. Gott, 
married Isaac Gerow, the New Yorker, who located in Hinton 
soon after its foundation, and is the brother of H. S. Gerow. Wil- 
liam Gott, another brother, married a Miss Lavender, residing now 
near Ronceverte, W. Va. 

Andrew Gott, a brother of John R., and now a citizen of Mercer, 
was a captain in the Confederate Army during the Civil War of 
Co. I, 36th Virginia Infantry. 

John R. Gott has been a member of the city council of both 
Hinton and of Upper Hinton. Another son, Fred, is an undertaker 
in the town of Princeton, W. Va. v 

DALY. 

Adrian D. Daly is one of the rising lawyers of this section. He 
was born in Bridgeport, Alabama, July 11, 1876; studied telegraphy 



490 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



at fourteen years of age, rose to the position of train dispatcher 
on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, which position he occupied 
at Thurmond and Hinton. During his employment as telegraph 
operator he studied law; took the law course at the West Virginia 
University in 1902, was admitted to the bar in 1903, and began the 
active practice in 1905, retiring from the railway service. When 
the law was passed in 1907 establishing the office of police judge 
in the city of Hinton, he was appointed police judge, which position 
he now holds, being a fearless and just official. In 1904 he was 
united in marriage with Miss Vella V. Flanagan, a daughter of 
Andrew G. Flanagan, of Hinton. He is an active and enterprising 
lawyer and citizen, free from deceit, sham or hypocrisy. His 
course as judge of the police court, the first the city" ever had, and 
under a law passed by the Legislature of 1907, against the protest 
of many of the best citizens of the city, has been efficient and in 
the interest of good government, and has met the approval of the 
great majority of the best citizens of the cities. He is the founder 
of "Sunset Hill" addition to Hinton, for which he deserves credit 
for his enterprise. 

COMPTON. 

William Egan Compton was an early settler in Hinton, though 
not one of the earliest. He was a native of Tazewell County, Vir- 
ginia, and married Lucinda Neal, of Bland County, Virginia. In 
1875 he bought a plantation, including a part of the Clover Bottoms 
on Bluestone, in Mercer County, which is still owned to this day 
by his children. He owns that part of the Clover Bottoms known 
as the old Clay place, and the exact spot on which Tabitha Clay 
was killed by the Indians. Her grave is still to be seen by rough 
monuments, and the place where the Indian stood who shot her, 
close to a spring, is still pointed out. Mr. Compton came to Hinton 
in 1883, and made that city his permanent home until his death 
in 1903, his wife having died in 1900. Their children were Edward 
W\, who now lives in Beckley and is one of the largest stockholders, 
and is the general manager of The Raleigh Supply and Milling 
Company, which manufactures feed and other foodstuffs and op- 
erates a general feed business and rock crushing plant at Whorley's 
Mill, one of the ancient water grist-mills in Raleigh County on 
Piney. He was at one time sergeant of the city of Hinton. Miss 
Susanna Belle Compton, the second child, resides in Chillicothe, 
Missouri, in the same town with Thos. K. Campbell, an old resident 



THE COMPTON FAMILY, 
Early Settlers of Hinton. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



491 



of Camp Creek, and J. H. Campbell, his son, who was for some 
time a resident of this county, having emigrated to Missouri in 
1905. The other children are Miss Hester, unmarried ; Miss Lily, 
who married C. T. Nunnelley, a competent locomotive engineer 
of the C. & O. Railway, and they reside in Hinton ; Captain B. T. 
Compton, a conductor on the C. & O. Railway, who married Miss 
Maddox, of Front Royal, Virginia, and who live in Hinton ; Miss 
Mary, who married James Eubanks, another locomotive engineer 
of the C. & O. Railway; and Walter Compton, who resides at 
Charleston, in the employment of the K. & M. Railway, occupying 
the position of road foreman of engines. 

CLARK. 

There were two families of Clarks of Pipestem District who 
deserve special mention in any correct history of this region — that 
of Charles Clark, mentioned in another section, and that of Rufus 
Clark, which is undertaken to be dealt with, and, as in so many in- 
stances, we have the same difficulty on account of defective fam- 
ily records. 

Rufus Clark, the founder of the family in this county, was 
born near Indian Mills, then in Monroe County, where Esquire 
James M. Keatley and his family now reside, on the 13th day of 
December, 1812, during the period of the second struggle of our 
country with great Britain, his father being in the army of the 
United States at the date of the birth of Rufus Clark. He was the 
tenth of a family of twelve children. His father's name was Al- 
exander Clark, and, as above stated, a soldier of the war of 1812, 
and was of Irish descent. The date of the emigration of the re- 
mote ancestor from beyond the sea is now unknown. The first 
founders of the family resided near Lmion, in Monroe County, 
and were familiar with all the hardships and burdens of pioneer 
life, and with the treacherous and deadly modes of the Indians. 
Rufus Clark was united in marriage with Mary Ford, and there 
were born to them ten children, four boys and six girls. Sa- 
rah E. married Joel A. Butler; Derinda, Joseph F. Wood; Mary 
E., A. F. Brown, P. C, Z. R. Butler and Virginia Clark, and N. 
G., who married A. H. Via. The boys were Allen T., A. F., Jas. 
G., John and R. W. 

Rufus Clark and wife settled on the old Clark homestead, now 
occupied by R. W. Clark, overlooking the NeAv River, in 1851. 
Alexander Clark's wife's maiden name was Marv Hawkins, and 



492 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



they were married in what is now Monroe County, in 1796, and 
the following year that county was formed. 

Rufus Clark died January 12, 1886. Alexander Clark, a brother 
of Rufus, settled in Kanawha County, and Judge Henry C. Mc- 
Whorter, of the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, mar- 
ried one of his daughters. 

Allen T. Clark, the oldest son of Rufus, and James G., were 
brave soldiers in the Confederate Army throughout the Civil War, 
the latter receiving a severe wound at the Seven Days' Fight 
around Richmond. A. F., another brother, joined the army in 
1863, and was severejy wounded at the Battle of Winchester, on 
September 19, 1864. 

Rufus Clark and all his family are noted for their good citi- 
zenship and as law-ibiding and pious people — that character of 
people who go to make the "bone and sinew" of a good commu- 
nity. Several of the boys have held positions of trust among their 
neighbors, Allen T. having been the president of the Board of 
Education of Pipestem District and a justice. 

R. W. Clark, the eighth child, and who resides on the old 
plantation of his father, is one of the oldest and most progressive 
teachers in the county, having begun that occupation in 1877, and 
is noted in this section as one of its most progressive educators. 
He was elected as a member of the Board of Examiners of the 
county for a term of two years. On the 13th day of April, 1887, 
he was united in marriage with Miss Mary C. Crawford, and they 
have seven children. He is now a member of the Book Board 
of the county, having been elected to that position by reason of his 
character, probity and good judgment ; served his district for four- 
teen years as a justice of the peace, and refused to serve longer. 
His conduct of that office was characterized by honest, fair and 
good judgment. So admirably were his official duties performed 
that his constituents desired him to continue to hold the position, 
but he declined, after having been elected four terms in succes- 
sion, only serving two years of his last term. 

The ancestors of this family were engaged as fighters of the 
Indians, and one of them — possibly Alexander — took part in a 
fight on an island at the mouth of Indian Creek, near where Charles 
A. Baber now resides. This fight on the side of the whites was 
fought by Captain Paull, and it was in this fight that a Mrs. Gwinn 
was recaptured from the Indians, who had taken her prisoner and 
were conveying her West when overtaken and recaptured in this 
Indian fight on said island. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 493 



Unfortunately, the details of this fight are lost to history, and 
only by tradition are we able to chronicle that there was such 
a fight, commanded by Captain Paull on the part of the whites, 
and that they were victorious, and that it resulted in the recapture 
of the white woman, who was thus enabled to be returned to her 
friends, and the Clark ancestry were engaged on the side of the 
whites and of civilization. 

LIVELY. 

This family name is celebrated principally through Colonel 
Wilson Lively, of Lowell. At the date of his death, he was resid- 
ing in the old "Graham House," at the west end of the railroad 
bridge at Lowell, at the old Graham ferry. There are but com- 
paratively few of the name now residing in the county, a large 
number being located in the counties of Fayette and Monroe. Two 
of Colonel Wilson Lively's daughters married and are now living 
on the old homestead, one being Mrs. Bunyan L. Kesler, and the 
other Mrs. Henry F. Kesler. Another daughter, Miss Bettie M. 
B., married Prof. James French Holroyd, both of whom were 
schoolmates at the Concord Normal School at Athens, W est Vir- 
ginia, where Professor Holroyd and his family now reside, he 
being one of the oldest and most widely known, popular and dis- 
tinguished of the faculty of that institution. Mrs. Holroyd and the 
two Mrs. Keslers are sisters of the Hon. Frank Lively, of Hinton, 
West Virginia. The Livelys are of English descent, but as to the 
date of their emigration and settlement in this land, I am unable 
to state. 

Hon. Frank Lively is the youngest child of Colonel Wilson 
Lively. He was born at Lowell, then known as Graham's Ferry, 
now Talcott District, then Monroe County, now Summers County, 
on the 18th day of November, 1864, attended the free schools in 
his boyhood, and then took the general course at the Concord Nor- 
mal School, graduating there with honor in 1882, after which he 
took a supplemental course and the law course at the University of 
West Virginia in 1883 and 1884, from which he graduated and 
took the degree of "Doctor of Laws" in 1884. After completing 
his course at school he located at Hinton in 1884, for the practice 
of his profession, and within about a year thereafter formed a co- 
partnership with Hon. W. R. Thompson in the practice of the 
law, which copartnership continued until after the removal of Mr. 
Thompson to Huntington, in 1890, when he was united in marriage 



494 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,, WEST VIRGINIA. 



to Annie E. Prince, of Hinton, a daughter of James Prince. In 
1900 he was elected prosecuting attorney over Mr. Thos. N. Read, 
by a majority of fourteen. He was the nominee of the Republican 
party, and it was in this election that the celebrated "Blue Pencil" 
wing of that party received its christening, it being claimed that 
the blue pencil cut a figure in the result. 

Mr. Lively held this office, with Judge A. R. Heflin as his as- 
sistant, until April 1, 1905, when he resigned the office to accept 
the appointment from Governor White as Fish and Game Warden, 
E. C. Eagle being appointed the prosecuting attorney to fill out 
the unexpired term of Mr. Lively, with Judge Heflin to assist. 

Upon the election of the Hon. Clark W. May as Attorney Gen- 
eral at the election in 1904, Mr. Lively was appointed Assistant 
Attorney General, which position he held until May 1, 1906, when 
he was appointed by Governor Wm. M. O. Dawson as pardon at- 
torney, and which position he now holds. In 1888 Mr. Lively was 
a candidate on the Democratic ticket for the nomination for prose- 
cuting attorney of Summers County, but was defeated by Jas. H. 
Miller. He retained his affiliation with that party until 1900, 
when he allied himself with the fortunes of the Republican party, 
and was nominated as the candidate of that party for prosecuting 
attorney, and was elected as herein stated. 

In 1904 he was the nominee of the same party for judge of the 
Ninth Judicial District, composed of the counties of Wyoming, 
Summers and Raleigh, against Colonel T. G. Mann, Major Jas. 
H. McGinn is and I. C. Christian. This was a celebrated campaign, 
and much bitterness was engendered in that party between the 
opposing candidates. Two executive committees were in opera- 
tion, and a general "war to the knife" contest resulted, two sets' 
of delegates being appointed from Summers, the home county of 
Messrs. Lively and Mann ; but when the convention came off 
neither Mr. Mann nor Mr. McGinnis permitted their names to go 
before the convention, and at the polls both Mr. McGinnis and Mr. 
Mann supported the Democratic nominee, and both being men of 
pronounced ability and probity, their influence largely aided in 
encompassing the defeat of Mr. Lively. 

Mr. Lively is an active and an influential citizen, and until he 
entered politics and assumed charge of his duties as a public offi- 
cial, which requires practically all of his time at Charleston, had 
a large clientele and a fair proportion of the legal business of the 
county. He has many warm friends, and a large following as a 
politician in his party. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 495 

Colonel Wilson Lively was a colonel in the militia before the 
war, and was sheriff of Monroe County a number of times, and 
was a very popular and prominent citizen. The ancestors in the 
"old country" were centuries ago followers of the great English 
soldier and statesman, Oliver Cromwell, and after the restoration 
of the English kings to the throne of the kingdom, "came across 
the waters" and settled in the colony of Virginia, of which West 
Virginia is now a part. 

The death of Colonel Wilson Lively was one of the tragedies 
growing out of the great Civil War. He was an intense South- 
erner, a Union man devoted to its adhesion, but loyal to his Com- 
monwealth, and when it seceded, like the great body of the loyal 
people of the State, went along. He was a member of the Virginia 
State Senate when Richmond fell and Lee surrendered, having 
been a member of that body throughout the war. It was the shock 
of the news of the evacuation of the Confederate capital and of the 
surrender of Lee at Appomattox which caused his death. He was 
on his way to Richmond, at Farmville, when the news reached 
him, and the shock was so great that he died within two hours 
thereafter. 

Colonel Lively's wife was a Miss Gwinn, of the old family of 
that name of the county, and is of Irish origin. The only other 
members of the Lively generation now in the county are Le- 
roy Lively, of Green Sulphur District, a distant cousin of the 
Wilson Lively family, and David and Chris, of Barger's Springs. 

BOWLING. 

The Bowlings are a numerous family in the lower end of Mer- 
cer County, and it is a pioneer family. The most prominent citi- 
zen of the name in this county at this time is Walter P. Bowling, 
the present efficient and active deputy sheriff, with A. J. Keatley, 
sheriff of the county, and an enterprising merchant at Tophet, and 
the candidate for the nomination for clerk of the County Court 
at the next election. The original ancestor of the Bowlings was 
Jessie, who was kidnaped in England and brought to Maryland, 
where he remained until the Revolution, volunteered in the Con- 
tinental Army for six months, and continued in the active service 
until the close of the war. He came to Lynchburg after the Revo- 
lution, married Sarah Robinson, and then settled on Wolf Creek, 
in Giles County, where he reared a family of seven children — 
William, Thomas, John, Dorcas, Nancy, Virginia and Betsey. Wil- 



496 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Ham married a Perdue, and settled in Mercer County, near the 
present site of Athens. He was the pioneer settler in that district. 
Thomas settled on Twelve Pole, in Wayne County. John married 
Sallie Walker, and settled on the Bluestone, near Spanishburg. He 
reared a large family, who live in Mercer and Summers counties, 
nearly all living in Mercer. Nancy married Hiram Burgess, and 
settled on Bluestone, near the present location of Maxwell's Mills. 
Virginia married Joe Crawford, and they lived on East River. 
Dorcas Bowling was never married. The family name is spelled 
in several different ways — Bowling, Bowlin, Bolin and Boling; 
but it matters not how the name is spelled — they all descend from 
the same common ancestor. 

F. A. Bowling, the successful merchant at Athens, is a promi- 
nent member of this family, who was in the Confederate 0 Army, in 
which he was a soldier. He was elected and held the office of clerk 
of the Circuit Court of Mercer County for six years. Walter P. 
Bowling, the merchant of this county, is an enterprising citizen, 
and takes an active interest in public affairs, being active in the 
councils of the Democratic party, of which he is a member. He 
was born and reared in Mercer County, but has made this county 
his home for the last fifteen years. 

Thomas Jefferson Bolin and his three brothers, Jessie I., Lee 
and Charles, all went out into the Civil War at its beginning, vol- 
unteering and becoming members of the first company that enlisted 
in the Southern Army from Mercer County. They were members 
of Captain Straley's company, except Charles, who joined another 
company. The four brothers were in the entire four years of the 
war until the surrender at Appomattox, and came out without a 
scratch or wound of the flesh. Thomas J. had the heel of his shoe 
shot off, his cartridge belt shot in twain and his clothes shot full of 
holes and his horse shot under him, but no shot reached his flesh. 
He was the father of Walter P. Bowling, the merchant of Tophet. 
The original Bowling settlers located on the Clover Bottoms in 
the Clay settlement, and were in that region in the Indian days. 
F. A., commonly known as "Alex.," the merchant at Athens, was 
shot in the arm and shoulder during the war, being a brave Con- 
federate soldier. When he came back from the army he had noth- 
ing whatever. He dug "sang," sent it to Richmond, and secured 
a suit of clothes, then raised a crop and secured an education to 
teach school. After teaching several sessions, the late H. W. 
Straley furnished him $800 with which to begin merchandising at 
Athens. He was always noted for his honesty and fair and square 



< w. 




HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 497 

dealing, and is now estimated to be worth easily $100,000.00. He 
and H. W. Straley entered into a co-partnership with Waiter P. 
Bowling, and founded the business of the latter at Tophet as W. P. 
Bowling & Co., which partnership continued for fifteen years, but 
is now owned entirely by the younger member of the firm. 

DAVID G. BALLANGEE. 

David G. Ballangee, the postmaster at Clayton, is now sixty- 
one years of age. He married Miss Delphia Flint, and they have 
reared the following-named children : Thomas G., now 36 years 
of age; Davis A., 35 years old; John C, 32 years old; Ella C, 30 
years old; Sarah A., 28 years old; Mina M., now 26; Medora R., 
24; Mary E., 21; Emma S., 19; Homer C, 16; and Grace L., 13 
years old. 

Mr. Ballangee is one of the enterprising farmers of the county ; 
has installed a sawmill, blacksmith shop, commissary, and, having 
the postoffice, is an independent man, thrifty and honorable. He 
is a staunch Republican in politics, an advocate of the protective 
tariff, and is a Missionary Baptist. His mother was a Graham, 
daughter of foseph Graham, and is therefore a descendant of that 
ancient family, and is the owner of the old Graham homestead 
at the foot of Keeney's Knob. 

Mr. Ballangee has always taken an active interest in politics, 
but not as a politician of the office-seeking kind, and while a Re- 
publican, has not been so strenuous that he has not voted for and 
supported candidates on the Democratic ticket whom he consid- 
ered better qualified and more worthy than the candidates on his 
own party ticket. Any country is better off by having such citi- 
zens as David Graham Ballangee. He was a "Union man" during 
the war, but was not an active participant, being under the age of 
enlistment at the declaration of hostilities. 

LUSHER. 

There is but one family of the name of Lusher in the county, 
and Thomas Daniel Lusher, of Lick Creek, in Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict, is the head of that family. He resides on the "Sugar Knob," 
and is now one of the aged citizens of that section. His father's 
name was George Lusher, who was a soldier in the war of 1812 
with England. He lived to the good old age of ninety-nine years, 
and when in his ninety-ninth year walked the distance of seventeen 
miles on foot. 



498 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



,T. D. Lusher was born in Greenbrier County, on June 26, 1823, 
and served throughout the Civil War as a soldier in the Confeder- 
ate Army. He married Miss S. J. Wood, a sister of Zacharia 
Wood, the famous hunter and Lick Creek blacksmith. The lat- 
ter was born July 17, 1826, and married a sister of Thomas D. 
Lusher. 

Thomas D. Lusher has for many years been a consistent tem- 
perance advocate, a Missionary Baptist and a Democrat. He is 
the father of Andrew Jackson Lusher, Aeniss Lusher, Sarah 
Lusher, who married Robert Hix ; and Amanda, who married 
Thomas Bryant. He is now one of the oldest citizens of the Green 
Sulphur District. 

JOHN LOWRY. 

John Lowry was one of the first settlers on the mountain at 
the head of Lick Creek. His son Giles resides on Little Wolf 
Creek, and was for a number of years the road commissioner for 
Greenbrier District ; Samuel, who now lives in Monroe County 
and is engaged in the lumber business ; Tolliver, who in his younger 
days emigrated to Fresno, California, where he had by industry 
and thrift accumulated a handsome fortune, died in 1906; John 
L., commonly known as Jack, resides on the old farm near the 
head of Lick Creek, the spring which forms the head being- known 
as Eleber Spring. One daughter married Henderson Allen, an- 
other married Andrew J. Lusher, and another married A. M. For- 
ren. John Lowry, Sr., was of English descent, a shoemaker by trade 
and a man of sterling honesty. 

HOUCHINS. 

The Houchins family is of Anglo-Saxon origin, and their set- 
tlement in this country antedates the formation of the county by 
many years. The first settler of the name, of which we have any 
tradition, was James Houchins, the grandfather of Wm. Houch- 
ins, Jr., now of Lerona, W. Va. He was a soldier of the war of 
1812, and resided in Monroe County, emigrating from Patrick 
County, Virginia.' Wm. Houchins, Sr., came to New River when 
a boy, with his brother James, and both grew up into manhood in 
the territory of Pipestem District. He was born in 1805. Wm. 
Houchins, Sr.'s, wife's maiden name was McDaniel, and there were 
born to them four girls and two boys. The boys were Wm. Houch- 
ins, Jr., and Ballard. The girls were Caroline M., who married a 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 499 

Caldwell ; Mary, who died single ; Martha, who died single, and 
Cela, who married the famous Primitive Baptist Minister, Joseph 
Hubbard. 

Wm. Houchins was an old-time Whig, until that political party 
became disorganized and was absorbed by the present Democratic 
and Republican parties, a Union man and a Primitive Baptist. 
When war broke out between the States he remained loyal to the 
State of Virginia, and cast his lot with the fortunes of the old 
Commonwealth. He was commissioner of the revenue and a jus- 
tice of the peace, being a land-owner and farmer by occupation, 
and a good, honest citizen. He was also, as well as the rest of the 
old settlers, a great hunter and trapper. He and William Keaton 
killed five panthers on Camp Creek, in Mercer County ; they shot 
time about, killing one at each shot, Wm. Houchins killing three 
and Keaton two, there being only five in the flock. He also killed 
five deer while standing in the same track. The wind was blowing 
from the deer towards him, and they could not get his scent. 
He stood by the side of a tree, and it is said that he killed in his 
days at least 300 deer. 

The son of Wm. Houchins, Sr., Wm., Jr., now resides at Le- 
rona Postoffice. He is one of the oldest and best equipped teach- 
ers of the county, and has followed that occupation for many years. 
He was also engaged for some time in the mercantile business, 
and is a land-owner and farmer, still holding a Grade No. 1 teacher 
certificate, good for five years, he having received that grade at the 
second examination ever had in the State under the present law. 
This shows a very complimentary standing in that profession, as 
the examinations were very rigid, and only a small proportion of 
the teachers came out with first grade and full term of five years. 
He married Alice Barker, a daughter of the late M. C. Barker, of 
Barker's Bottom, on New River. 

Ballard, the other son of Wm. Houchins and Mary, his wife, 
resides near the old Wm. Houchins, Sr., homestead, in Pipestem 
District. He is a farmer and a Democrat in politics. He was one 
of the brave Confederate soldiers who fought on the side of the 
"lost cause," of which there were many from that section of the 
country. 

James Houchins, a brother of Wm., Sr., was one of the found- 
ers of the county. He was one of the first supervisors of the 
county, and the old records show much of his handiwork. We are 
unable to give in detail but little of his family history, as his de- 
scendants have mostly removed from this section. He was a farmer 
and land-owner and an honest man. Like his brother William, 



500 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



he was a Democrat after the war, an old-time Whig before, and 
a Primitive Baptist. 

There was another brother, John, who settled in Monroe 
County. 

In the passing of these old citizens we are unfortunate in not 
having more of their personal history, for it was of such men that 
the "bone and sinew" of the land was composed, and by their 
hardy energy that the country was made habitable, and to blos- 
som and bloom as the rose. 

These Houchins were gruff, rough, strong-charactered men, 
without deceit or hypocrisy, and for what they stood were square 
from the shoulder. 

JAMES. 

The Wm. James Sons' Co., one of the leading business con- 
cerns of this section of the State, has done much for the building 
up of the cities of Hinton and Avis. 

The founder of this house in this county, and of the above- 
styled firm, was William James, an Englishman by birth, having 
been born in London, England, on the 24th day of March, 1815, 
but spent his youth and until his emigration to America in the 
southern part of Whales. His mother was a Welsh lady. In 1835 
W r m. James embarked for the United States, locating for a num- 
ber of years in Philadelphia, Pa. Later he removed to Cambria 
County and resided at Edensburg, returning across the ocean, how- 
ever, twice, making the two voyages to induce his widowed mother 
to emigrate to the United States, in which efforts he was unsuc- 
cessful, as she was not willing to undertake the perilous voyage, 
more perilous than now by reason of the great advancements in 
modern navigation. In 1844 he intermarried with Miss Mary Ev- 
ans, of Edensburg, Pa., and of this union there were born nine 
children, eight boys and one daughter, the latter dying in her in- 
fancy, within a few hours after birth. 

Mr. James was a man of fine business ability and judgment, 
and accumulated a handsome fortune in the manufacture of lum- 
ber, and from other enterprises promoted by him. His partners 
in business were his sons, adhering to the doctrine that "in union 
there is strength," admonishing his boys to adhere to this princi- 
ple ; and the result of his wisdom in this particular is fully dem- 
onstrated by the successful business operations of the "James 
Boys," the family being associated in all enterprises in which they 
or either of them have engaged. 

Wm. James, the father, with his wife, removed to the county 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 501 

in 1879, beginning business, however, a year or two before under 
the firm name of Wm. James & Sons. Before his removal his son, 
George James, and J. C. James, the eldest son, came to Hinton 
prospecting for a business location, in the early summer of 1876, 
and in the fall of the same year the father and J. C. made another 
examination of the prospects, and before the purchase of the tim- 
ber lands on the Bluestone River, securing also the first charter 
for booming and damming New River, for the purpose of advan- 
tageously transporting logs from the mountains. Work began on 
these improvements in 1877, by J. C. James, with some laborers 
from Pennsylvania and George James. It was during the follow- 
ing year the great flood of 1878 occurred, which destroyed much of 
the work done by the Jameses, and greatly disheartened them, and 
to some extent modified their plans. About the same time George 
James died from typhoid fever, and a little later another one of the 
sons, while attending school at the University of Virginia, visited 
his brother at Hinton, contracted typhoid fever and died. 

Their misfortunes were quite discouraging, but the work went 
on. A great dam was constructed across Bluestone River, on the 
Charles Clark place, and dykes built in Greenbrier River, as well 
as a large steam saw and planing mill at Hinton, the noted James 
Pond having been acquired by Wm. James, with fine foresight, for 
the purpose of creating a harbor for the logs floated down the riv- 
ers, and it was on this pond the mills were built, and on which 
two of the largest mills in this region are now located. Large 
tracts of timber and timber lands were acquired. Mr. George 
James, up to the date of his death, was largely the promoter in the 
construction work. Pie was a magnificent young man, in the 
prime of young manhood, with the brightest prospects. He and 
his brother, J. C, had been companions in this work, and this 
death was especially a blow to him. Mr. Howard James died soon 
after, being a student of medicine, and concluding his course at the 
great University of Virginia. The family, up to these deaths, 
consisted of the father and mother, Wm. and Mary, John Clarkson, 
Doctor M., Dwight W., Alphias W., Eben B., Howard, George 
and Herschel. Mr. James, however, regardless of the discourage- 
ments, determined to construct his operations here, and in the fall 
of 1878 removed to Hinton, having purchased the "Sperry" prop- 
erty in Upper Hinton — a handsome residence — and a little later 
built a large frame storehouse on the corner of Third Avenue and 
Ballangee Street, in Hinton, and opened up the furniture business 
of James Brothers, which was operated by the two younger sons, 



502 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



A. W. and E. B v manufacturing a portion of the furniture at the 
Upper Hinton mills. 

Mr. Wm. James contracted pneumonia, from which he died, 
and his remains now rest in the old cemetery on the hill in Avis. 
He was one of the founders of Hinton, and one of Nature's noble- 
men, the architect of his own fortune, of a Christian character, 
leaving to his children an ample fortune, and, best of all, a noble 
character, one of which any ancestry might be proud. 

After his death the enterprises and industries which he had in 
good judgment founded continued, the widow being taken in as 
one of the partners, under the original firm name of Wm'. James 
& Sons. Later it was changed to the Wm. James Sons' Co., and in 
1894 it was transferred from a copartnership into a corporation, 
under the style of the Wm. James Sons' Co., with J. C. James as 
president; P. L. James, a son of J. C, as secretary, and D. W. 
James as vice-president; the two younger sons, A. W. and E. B., 
removing back to Pennsylvania, where they still reside in the city 
of Kane, a town named after the celebrated Arctic explorer, Dr. 
Kane, of wmich he was a native, leaving the control of the entire 
business, mainly in this State, in the hands of J. C. James, assisted 
by his brother, D. W. James. 

The brothers, in addition to their enterprises in this section of 
the State, engaged in the lumber business, a chemical manufactur- 
ing plant, and railroading in Pennsylvania. They are, in addition 
to the plants in this county, interested in considerable coal lands 
and mining interests in Kanawha and Raleigh Counties. 

D. M. James graduated at the University of Virginia, and is 
a minister in the Congregational Church in the city of Plymouth, 
Mass., where the Puritans landed from the Mayflower, and has 
made a reputation as a preacher of eloquence and ability. 

The Wm. James Sons' Company erected the first houses known 
as "flats" in Hinton, situate on James Street, near the foot of the 
hill. The building is some 300 feet long, two stories high, and is 
adjusted for a . residence of twenty-four families ; is twenty-four 
houses in one, and is frame. The only other similar building in 
the city is that of Hon. Azel Ford and James Laing, on Temple 
Street, constructed of brick, the front being of pressed brick. 

J. C. James, the present head of the family, resides in Hinton, 
and is one of the leading business men of the State. He is a man 
of fine business attainments, always found at the front in any 
movement for the advancement and betterment of the public in- 
terests, and has done as much as any other one man towards the 
upbuilding of the community, and is looked to for his aid and good 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 503 



judgment in any enterprise for the general betterment of condi- 
tions and affairs. He was one of the leaders in securing the con- 
struction and maintenance of the branch of the Young Men's 
Christian Association of Hinton ; is the president of its board, and 
has held that office since the founding of the institution, some 
twelve years ago. He has been president of the Board of Educa- 
tion, elected as a Republican when the District was Democratic, 
and was largely responsible for the construction of the first mod- 
ern brick school building in the city, as well as the establishment 
of a public high school. He was one of the promoters of the Hin- 
ton Hardware Company (wholesale and retail), its vice-president, 
and has held that position from its foundation. 

He is a consistent member of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
South, and one of the strong supporters of that organization, and 
has done more towards securing that denomination a handsome, 
permanent and substantial house of worship, as well as a neat and 
attractive residence for the minister — "parsonage" — adjoining the 
church, than any other person, Mr. James having donated liber- 
ally towards the costs of the erection of the old as well as the new 
church building and the minister's home, after having donated a 
valuable lot of ground on the corner of Ballangee Street and Third 
Avenue, on which the buildings are located. He donated liber- 
ally towards securing the ground for the C. & O. Railway Com- 
pany's yards in Avis, when Hinton was apparently about to lose 
the division, by reason of not having sufficient grounds on which 
to operate. He was one of the original founders of the water sys- 
tem for the cities of Hinton and Avis, and was the president of 
that company throughout its life of some fifteen years. He is the 
president of the LaMont Mining Company, and in the organization 
of a Board of Trade for the two cities he took an active part, and 
is one of the officers of- that organization. His influence may always 
be found on the side of good order and of morality, and of honest 
government. 

In politics he is an ardent Republican, as is the entire family 
of the Jameses, but he has never been a politician or office-seeker. 
He believes in the doctrine of a protective tariff, and was a stal- 
wart on the money issue following the much larger wing of his 
party in the campaigns of 1896 and 1900, led by President McKin- 
ley, on the question of the gold standard versus free coinage of 
silver, at the ratio of 16 to 1. He made no false pretenses, as so 
many of our constituents do — promise to vote one way and do 
the reverse. 

It is a pleasure to contemplate a character such as we regard 



504 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



that of James Clark James, because it is good, and not submerged 
in deceit and hypocrisy. As widely as you may differ from him 
in public matters, he hideth not his position under a bushel. 

He was united in marriage with Miss Campbell, of , 

Pennsylvania, and they have a family of four sons (one daughter 
having died in infancy) — Paul L. James, general manager of La- 
Mont Mining Company, who married Miss Carrie Bare, of Vir- 
ginia; Maurice James, secretary of LaMont Mining Company; 
Frank James and Howard James. 

Dwight W. James resides in Hinton, at the C. L. Thompson 
homestead, having married Miss Alice Gott, formerly of Mercer 
County, West Virginia. He has, with his brother, J. C. James, 
conducted the lumber business of the concern in this county, he 
having direct charge of the delivery of the timber from the stump 
to the mills. 

PETERS. 

There are but few known descendants now in the territory of 
John and Christian Peters. They did not settle in the territory of 
the county, but near its territorial lines. They, John and Chris- 
tian, were both soldiers under General Nelson, in La Fayette's 
Corps, in the Revolution of 1776. They were at the surrender of 
the British at Yorktown, October 19, 1781, fighting Lord Cdrnwallis 
at Yorktown. They were of German descent, and were from the 
Valley of Virginia. Christian was born October 16, 1760, and died 
in October, 1837. John was probably older. 

It was in 1782, with their brother-in-law, Charles Walker, they 
came to the valley of New River, Christian settling on the grant 
where Peterstown is built, being named for him. Walker located 
in the lower end of Monroe County, near the Summers line. -John 
settled in Giles County. 

J<3hn Peters married a Miss Simms, of Madison County, Vir- 
ginia, then Rockingham County, from whence he came. Christian 
married Catharine Belcher, of Rockingham County. She spoke 
the German language and kept her German Bible in the 'house. 

Captain John Peters, Conrad Peters, James C. Peters, of Mer- 
cer Salt Works ; John Peters, of Peterstown ; the late James M. 
Byrnside, of Peterstown ; the late Mrs. C. W. Withrow and Mrs. 
L. M. Alderson, of Green Sulphur District, are descendants of 
Christian Peters. Mrs. Alderson left surviving her one daughter, 
Miss Sallie, who married Mr. Henry Shepherd, a very estimable 
and honorable citizen of Green Sulphur District, who owns and 
lives on the old L. M. Alderson homestead. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 505 



Mr. James C. Peters, of Mercer Salt Works, has been a justice 
of the peace of Pipestem District for ten years, and the postmas- 
ter of that office for many years. He now owns and resides on the 
old Mercer Salt Works property of some 900 acres, which he in 
recent years purchased from PTon. B. P. Shumate. 

The Peters are among the best citizens and truest people of the 
county. L. E. Peters, a very prominent divine of the Missionary 
Baptist Church of Parkersburg, is also a descendant of Christian 
Peters. The probability is that Peters Mountain was named for 
Christian Peters, although by some another origin is claimed 
through a hunter who ranged its wilds in early times. 

John Larue, of Havs Creek, in Monroe County, also married a 
descendant of Christian Peters. His son Lewis still owns and lives 
at Larue's Springs, on that creek. He taught school on Lick 
Creek many years ago, and is a most excellent citizen. 

The descendants of John Peters still inhabit Giles County, and, 
like those of Christian, are among the truest and best people of the 
South. 

Charles W. Walker, who owned and resided on a fine farm on 
New River in the Harvey settlement in Forest Hill District, and 
who died some years ago, a most enterprising and thrifty farmer, 
and who married a Peters, a sister of Henry Peters, who lived for 
many years at the old schoolhouse on Stinking Lick in Forest Hill, 
now of Monroe County, and of Samuel C. Peters, the cattle dealer of 
that county, was a descendant of Charles W. Walker, the brother- 
in-law of Christian and John Peters, as was his wife of these set- 
tlers. His children still live in this region, excepting one son, 
Dr. C. A. Walker, who is practicing his profession in Missouri 

The father of Mary Burks Alderson and Eliza Angeline With- 
row was Conrad Peters. He died in Braxton County. A brother 
of Conrad was Christian, who died in the State of Missouri. Con- 
rad died in Braxton County. 

James C. Peters, the justice above mentioned, is a son of 
Christian. 

The only child of Columbus W ran Withrow and Eliza Ange- 
line (Peters) Withrow is Estella Burk, who married Oscar T. 
Honaker, an enterprising merchant and lumber dealer of New 
Richmond. 

Another daughter of Conrad Peters, and the only one now 
living, is Mrs. Rebecca Pack, the widow of Anderson Pack, who 
now lives at Burden, Kansas, with her grandchildren, the Man- 
sers. 



506 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Rev. L. E. Peters, of Parkersburg, the Baptist divine, is a de- 
scendant also of the ancient settlers of the name in the middle New- 
River settlements. 

Columbus Wran Withrow, the eldest of the Withrow genera- 
tion now living in the county, first married a daughter of Brice 
Miller, an ancient settler at the foot of the Lick Creek side of 
Keeney's Knob. He was the father of William Anderson Miller 
and Andrew Jackson Miller. The former married a daughter of 
William DeOuasie, the Frenchman, the latter a Duncan, daughter 
of Charles Duncan and Cassie (Alderson) Duncan, and they now 
live at Roanoke. Nathan A. Miller is a trusted locomotive en- 
gineer now living in Hinton, a son of A. J. Miller. W. A. Miller 
died on the Brice Miller farm, now owned by John L. George. 
Other daughters of Brice Miller married Vardeman DeQuasie ; 
Joseph Fink, the father of Rev. J. Newton Fink, the Baptist min- 
ister of New Richmond, and Andrew Hix and T. J. Jones. 

Cornelius Miller, another son of A. J. Miller, lives in Talcott 
District. A few years ago, when returning to his home on Hun- 
gart's Creek with a considerable amount of money on his person, 
when a short distance up the creek, near where E. D. Alderson 
now lives, about dark he was visited by robbers, knocked down, 
badly wounded and robbed of all his money. A vigilant effort 
was made by the county authorities to apprehend the robbers, 
but they made their escape in the darkness into the Big Bend 
Mountains and escaped, and Mr. Miller was never able to identify 
the robbers or secure the return, of his property. 

T. N. COOK. 

Thomas N. Cook, a native of Greenbrier County, married Miss 
Florence Miller, sister of Robert Miller, March 9, 1871. He is a 
native of Nicholas County, but has been a resident of Summers 
County for the past twenty years. He was a brave soldier in the 
Confederate Army, belonging to the Nicholas Blues, Twenty- 
second Regiment, and later the Thirty-sixth Virginia Regiment, 
and lost a leg in battle. He spent most of his life before locating 
in this county in Nicholas. His captain was Hon. C. T. Smith, 
of Nelson County, Virginia, and for a number of years was located 
at Ronceverte — a lawyer and politician, and served after the war 
a number of terms in the Senate of Virginia. Mr. Cook, although 
coming out of the war, went to work and has succeeded against 
great disadvantages, having accumulated a considerable fortune. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 507 

He is a schoolmaster by profession; has operated one of the first 
liveries established in Hinton ; engaged in farming at one time, 
purchasing the Curtis Alderson place on Lick Creek, where he 
resided for some time. He is a consistent missionary Baptist and 
a Democrat; a man of high integrity and honor. Mr. Cook was 
one of the early settlers of Hinton. 

THE HUTCHINSON FAMILY. 

The Hutchinson family is a family of the older settlers of For- 
est Hill District, and consisted of two brothers who settled in that 
district many years ago, and were the sons of Jacob Hutchinson, 
James A. and John Masten. James A. was a missionary Baptist, 
while John M. was very prominent in the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, both brothers being active in church affairs, and were 
consistent Christian pioneers. James A. was known since the war 
as Major Jim Hutchinson, having been a major in the Virginia 
militia before the war. After the war he was township treasurer 
of the school fund. They were born in Forest Hill District, in 
what was then Monroe County, their father removing from Au- 
gusta County and settling in Forest Hill many years before the 
war. 

Major James A. Hutchinson left surviving him Alonza M., Wel- 
lington, Lewis, J. E. and T. M. A. M. Hutchinson was for 
eight years Assistant Assessor of Summers County, filling one 
term as deputy for John Lilly; the other, as deputy for W. C. 
Dobbins. He was also, like his father, a consistent Christian of 
the missionary Baptist denomination, and has filled the position 
of moderator for the Greenbrier Association for the long period of 
ten years. He now holds the position of jury commissioner for 
the county under appointment from the judge of the circuit court. 

Wellington is a farmer near Forest Hill, as is also Lewis. J. E. 
was a prominent minister in the missionary Baptist Church, and 
T. M. is engaged in the mercantile business at Forest Hill, and is 
the postmaster at that place, which position he has held for several 
years. 

James A. Hutchinson also left four daughters, Mrs. Eliza Ann, 
Mildred J., Mary C, who married William Gillespie, who resides 
at Talcott, and Louisa A., who married William A. Goode, of Forest 
Hill District. John Maston Hutchinson, the other brother, left two 
sons, James A. and Richard A., who both emigrated to Jackson, 
Ohio, at which place they still reside. 



508 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



WILLIAM B. WIGGINS. 

About 1870 there appeared on Greenbrier River one of the 
quaintest personalities known to the history of the county. He 
appeared as the representative of the large grant of land known 
as the Rumford Tract, of several thousand acres. His wife was a 
Rumford. All the heirs, including Margaret Rumford, an ancient 
maiden lady, Mary B. Pyle, Richard Humphries and Lucy B,. 
Spain, lived in Pennsylvania and Delaware. 

Wiggins was eccentric and peculiar and finely educated, writing 
a magnificent and beautiful hand, as can be seen on the record 
deed books in the office of the clerk of the county court, where he 
was engaged as deputy for some time under E. H. Peck, clerk. He 
had been at one time paymaster in the army of the United States; 
had been charged with irregularities in keeping his accounts ; came 
out short in his accounts, and was tried, convicted and sentenced 
to confinement in the penitentiary., but was only sent to jail. After 
serving for some time, he was paroled by President U. S. Grant, 
and on his release he emigrated to this country and took up his 
abode, and remained until his death, at an advanced age of about 
eighty years. 

His bondsmen at one time, about 1880, gave him up, came out 
from Wilmington and carried him back to confinement, but he 
secured his release and returned. He had, before his downfall, been 
mayor of the city of Wilmington, and was a licensed lawyer, and 
was too "handy" with his pen. He built a queer-shaped house 
with four sides at Wiggins, where he lived alone, doing his own 
cooking and housekeeping. 

In 1890 he was the Republican nominee for clerk of the circuit 
court against B. L. Hoge. He wrote deeds and other legal docu- 
ments and did a general scrivener's work, being well qualified for 
that work. He was an architect of accomplishment, and had a wide 
reputation in all the region for his accomplished penmanship and 
education, but in business matters he was a failure. His wife's 
interest in the Rumford patents of 900 acres was not sufficient for 
him to make an ordinary living from, and he died in want and 
poverty, his wife remaining in the East. He had one son, Mr. 
Charles Wiggins, an employe of the Baldwin Locomotive Works, 
Philadelphia, and a daughter, who married an Episcopal clergyman 
in Boston by the name of Cobbs. 

He secured the establishment of a post office at Wiggins, which 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 511 



was named after him, and was the first postmaster. He secured 
the establishment also of Don Station on the C. & O. Railway at 
the same place, four miles from Hinton, on the Greenbrier. 

DeQUASIE. 

While John and Alex Miller were engaged in the mercantile 
business on Lick Creek, many years before the war, a Frenchman 
by the name of William DeQuasie and his wife came onto that 
creek, carrying all their belongings in a bundle on their backs. 
They had no money, credit or property, and could scarcely make 
themselves understood in the English language. They procured 
a piece of land and applied to the Millers for a peck of seed corn, 
which they refused. They were industrious, thrifty, saving people, 
and before the death of the said Millers they had borrowed many 
dollars from these thrifty foreigners. They saved money and in- 
vested it in the rough mountain land, of which they acquired 
several hundred acres on the Hump Mountain, lived to an old age, 
and at their deaths left large landed interests, as well as money 
and lands to their children. Their descendants are numerous. 
Vardeman, Lorenzo and Harrison were their sons. Squire William 
DeQuasie, of Fayette County, is a grandson. Wm. Anderson Mil- 
ler, a son of Brice Miller, of Keeney's Knob, married a daughter, 
Mary, and the wife of C. W. Wise, of Lick Creek, and of Marion 
Wise, of New River, who emigrated from Patrick County several 
years ago, are daughters of W. A. Miller and Mary Miller, nee 
DeQuasie. Cornelius Stickler, of the Hump Mountain, married 
another daughter, Andrew J. Stickler being their son and a grand- 
son of the DeOuasies. These old pioneers could not read or write 
in English, but when William died he made a last will, devising his 
property to his wife, and at her death she made a will likewise pro- 
viding for their children, and especially for a daughter and son, 
-Harrison and Betty, who were non compos mentis. 

NOEL. 

The pioneer resident physician of the lower end of this county 
was Dr. Norbin W T . Noel, who was born near the Peaks of Otter 
in the county of Bedford, Virginia, on .the 6th day of March, 1825. 
After reaching his majority, he removed with his parents to the 
county of Franklin, in which county he married Miss Mary Webb, 
on the 30th day of August, 1856. After his marriage he began to 



512 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



prepare himself for the medical profession. He attended lectures 
and took a medical course at the Philadelphia College of Medicine, 
Philadelphia, Penn., after which he removed with his family to 
Green Sulphur Springs, and located for the purpose of practicing 
the medical profession. Within a short time after his location at 
that place — some three or four years — the Civil War began, and he 
returned to Franklin County, Virginia, and enlisted as a private 
soldier, but was soon promoted to a lieutenant in his company, 
and shorth- after was assigned to the Twenty-second Virginia 
Regiment as a surgeon, in which capacity he remained until the 
close of the war. 

Dr. Noel was a Virginia gentleman, and a true Southerner, 
believing until the day of his death in the justness of the principles 
and the cause for which he enlisted and fought. At the close of 
the war Dr. Noel returned to Green Sulphur Springs, and again 
entered into the active practice of his profession, which he followed 
arduously to the close of his life, which occurred on the 6th day 
of May, 1892. 

His practice extended throughout Green Sulphur District into 
Fayette, Raleigh and Greenbrier Counties, and he was for many 
years the only physician in all that region. His travels were by 
night as well as by day, over rough mountains and through all 
kinds of weather : distance, inclemency of the weather, roughness 
of the roads or dangers from the streams never deterred him from 
attending a call. He was truly a benefactor in those times to all 
that region of country. His charges were moderate, and he took 
in payment for his services such of those things raised on the 
farm, because the people in those days were unable to pay for 
medical serives with currency. He never was known to sue or 
enforce the collection of medical bills. 

His family consisted of his wife, an intelligent lady, educated 
at Holland's Institute: one son. Dr. Edgar E. Noel. who. following 
in his father's footsteps, adopted the medical profession, now lo- 
cated at Green Sulphur Springs, and is one of the wealthiest and 
most prominent citizens in Summers County. He married a 
daughter of Thomas A. George, of Lick Creek. The only daughter 
of Dr. Noel, Miss Willie, married Mr. John W. Hale, of Southwest 
Virginia. Dr. Noel was a prominent citizen of the county at the 
date of its formation, and at the solicitation of friends in 18 — . 
made the race for clerk of the county court, but was defeated by 
a small majority through a combination of circumstances. He was 
a man of fine character, learned in his profession and a Christian 
gentleman. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 513 



WILLIAM C. DOBBINS. 

The Rev. William C. Dobbins came to this county from Mont- 
gomery County shortly after the close of the Civil War. He was 
a member of the Thirty-sixth Regiment under General McCaus- 
land. His captain was John R. Dunlap. He was reared in Mont- 
gomery County, and was married in that county to Miss Mary F. 
Bird. He was born August 20, 1839. In 1881 he was elected 
assessor, with Alonzo M. Hutchinson as his deputy. They served 
four years, and at the end of that term was re-elected for an ad- 
ditional four years, with Peter M. Grimmett as his deputy, serving 
in all eight years. For twenty-five years he was a minister in the 
primitive Baptist Church, after which he left that denomination 
and joined the Missionary Baptists, in which church he has been 
a minister for fifteen years. In politics Mr. Dobbins is a Repub- 
lican. In his races for assessor he ran independent, but later was 
nominated by the Republican party for the Legislature, but was 
defeated by John W. Johnson. This was in 1888. He and Erastus 
H. Peck were in a combination in one of Mr. Peck's races for clerk 
of the county court. Mr. Peck agreed to pay Mr. Dobbins a certain 
sum of money, and did execute his note therefor in order to secure 
his influence and the support of himself and friends, but afterwards 
Mr. Dobbins claimed that Mr. Peck had repudiated the business 
part of the transaction. Mr. Dobbins has always been a prominent 
citizen from the foundation of the county. He has a family of four 
boys and one daughter. His daughter, Mary Alice, married J. L. 
Farrow. His sons are W. J. Dobbins, B. M. Dobbins, D. C. Dob- 
bins and A. T. Dobbins. In his first race for assessor he defeated 
Levi M. Neeley, and in his second, Walter H. Boude. In those 
races no nominations were made by either political party, and there 
were always a great number of candidates, especially for that office. 
Mr. Dobbins, in his early days, was a strong man, but in late years 
has not taken an active interest in political matters. 



JONES. 

Jesse Jones was born near Hilldale, in Monroe County, and 
settled, lived and died a prosperous man, merchant and farmer on 
Wolf Creek, at Bradshaw Church. This family of Joneses are of 
Welsh descent. His mother was from Grayson County, Virginia — 
Miss Margaret M. Miller — and she married a Charlton as her sec- 



514 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ond husband, and by him was the mother of the venerable J. J. 
Charlton, of Charlton's Mill, on Madam's Creek. 

The only family of the descendants of Jesse Jones in this county 
is William W. Jones, of Talcott, one of the oldest and most re- 
spected merchants in the county. The mercantile business of which 
he is the present owner and successor was founded in 1867. The 
style of the firm was Stafford, Thrasher & Co., and later J. W. 
Jones & Brother. J. W. Jones, the other member of this firm, was 
later, in 1875, accidentally killed in his store by a pistol in his own 
hands. This was September 17. 1875. The business was first be- 
gun at Rollinsburg, on the opposite side of the river from Talcott, 
and moved to Talcott on the building of the railway into the coun- 
try. Mr. Jones was the first express agent in that town, which 
position he held for many years, and is still doing a general mer- 
cantile business in his ancient storehouse, the one at Rollinsburg 
remaining only as a relic and reminder of the past. He was a sol- 
dier of the Confederate States Army through the war, being a 
member of Captain Reed's Company B, Edgar's Battalion. He 
has been a member of the Board of Education of his District, has 
been a consistent Missionary Baptist, and the people of the com- 
munity have great faith in his honor and integrity. When the citi- 
zens of Talcott were sued in the Karnes case, and their homes and 
property threatened, he was selected as one of the Committee of 
Safety, along with Messrs. Manning and Ford. In 1894 he married 

Miss C. Hawkins, of Rocky Point, Monroe County, who 

died on the 15th of January, 1894. 

The other children of Jesse Jones were J. W. Jones, Andrew 
J. Jones, the merchant of Alderson ; James M. and Lewis A., who 
reside in Monroe County, the latter at the old place on Wolf Creek. 
His daughters were Mary A., who married Jacob Hall, who died, 
and she then married W. P. Willis; and Catharine, who married 
G. W. Hill. 

W. W. Jones was also one of the promoters and stockholders 
of the Talcott Toll Bridge Company, which was instrumental in 
the construction of the new iron bridge at that place. At one time 
he owned the Talcott ferry across the Greenbrier at that place, 
which he sold to Captain Thomas C. Maddy, a descendant of that 
old and honorable family of first settlers by the name of Maddy, an- 
other of which is Thaddeus Maddy, of Raleigh, Raleigh County. 

W. W. Jones is the oldest merchant in point of time engaged 
in the business in the county, and a very enterprising and Chris- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 515 

tian gentleman, a Missionary Baptist and a Democrat. He was 
for many years, until he resigned, the agent for the Adams Express 
Co. at Talcott. 

CAPTAIN MARK MILLER. 

Marcus Marion Miller is a son of Grief Miller, a native of Ap- 
pomattox County, Virginia; was reared in that county and Lees- 
ville, in Campbell County, where he lived twenty-one years, and 
when he left there and came to Mercer County and located on Flat 
Top Mountain, he had $21,000, and owned twenty-one slaves. He 
became a very wealthy man, and owned large boundaries of land 
around Princeton. He owned the site of Bluefield, and died in re- 
cent years. He was of Scotch-Irish descent. He left four sons — 
Marcus Marion, Chas. H., who was a judge in Bland County, Vir- 
ginia, for a number of years, and finally removed to Texas, where 
he died. Another son was Dr. Thomas Miller, a graduate in medi- 
cine of the University of New York. He died some years ago in 
Texas, where he located, on the settlement of that State. The 
other son, William, was a professional school teacher. 

Marcus Marion Miller is still a resident of Hinton, in Sum- 
mers County. He was born on the 25th day of September, 1834. 
In 1855 he emigrated to and resided for some years at Camden, Ar- 
kansas, where he was elected clerk of the county court of Sevier 
County, also clerk of the probate court. Returning to West Vir- 
ginia, he engaged in the mercantile business in Mercer County, and 
was one of the pioneer lumber men at the time of the building and 
directly after the C. & O. Ry., in which business he was engaged 
for twenty-five years. He was a captain in the Confederate Army 
during the whole war, and was a captain of the State militia at the 
beginning of the war. He was a drill master at Fort Smith and 
Fort McCullough, in Arkansas. He was one of the few soldiers 
engaged during the entire war who never saw a Union soldier, 
being located as drill master, and required to prepare recruits and 
send them on to the front. He was under the command of General 
Pike. 

Captain Miller is a Knight of Pythias and an Odd Fellow, who 
takes great interest in the secret order work, being captain of the 
uniform drill in the Uniform Rank of Odd Fellows. He is Presby- 
terian in religious belief and Republican in politics and principles. 
He first married Elizabeth Branch Herndon. Judge Herndon, of 



516 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



McDowell Circuit Court, is his nephew. His second wife was Edith 
Billingsly, a widow and the mother of that excellent citizen Samuel 
Billingsly, the lumberman and farmer of Powley's Creek. 

GEORGE. 

Thomas George was one of the early settlers in the Meadows 
of Greenbrier County, near the Summers line ; was of Scotch-Irish 
descent and an orphan, having been raised by his uncle, Thomas 
Moore. He came originally from the county of Rappahannock, in 
Virginia, in the Valley of Virginia. He had one brother and sev- 
eral sisters. The sisters all married and settled in the West. The 
brother of Thomas was older, and by the old laws, under the Eng- 
lish customs, the older son inherited the estate. This brother is 
understood to have settled in Missouri. Thomas married Catha- 
rine McCoy, and raised twelve children, all of whom lived to ma- 
turity and to old age, three boys and nine girls. Sallie married 
John Gwinn, who settled in the Little Meadows. Jane married Enos 
Huffman, and lived on Muddy Creek. Betsy married Jacob Sur- 
baugh, and lived in the Grassy Meadows. Mary married a Sha- 
ver, and lived in Nicholas County. Cynthia married a Frazier, and 
moved to Ironton, Ohio. Elize married a McCrary, and settled in 
Lewis County. Catharine married Daniel Sumner, and also resides 
in Lewis County. Malinda married a Boggess, and lived in Fay- 
ette County. Margaret married Harry P. Miller, a son of John 
Miller, who moved to Gentry County, Missouri. The boys were 
William, who settled on Muddy Creek, and whose wife was Ruth 
Conner. The other sons were John and Thomas Lewis, who had 
one son, John Frazier George, who resided for a number of years at 
the old place near Mcllhenny Chapel, in the Grassy Meadows; 
thence removed to Hinton, and later to Orange County, Virginia, 
in which county he now resides. The girls were Emily, who mar- 
ried James H. Bledsoe, the mother of Randolph and James Owen 
Bledsoe, now citizens of Hinton, and Champion Bledsoe, of the 
Meadows, and Miss Sallie. Another daughter, Virginia, married 
James W. Alderson, who now lives at Foss, in this county, and 
the other daughter, Miss Alice, married John L. Duncan, who lives 
at Oak Hill, in Fayette County. John George was the father of 
eleven children — eight girls and three boys. Martha married a 
Curry; Elizabeth married Peter Maddy; Sarah married Marion 
Gwinn; Mary married a McClung; Cynthia married Pharas Harrah, 
and Virginia, who married Hill Nickell, now lives in Colorado. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 517 



The sons were John A. George, who married Elizabeth Benson 
Miller, daughter of Captain A. A. Miller, and who owns the A. A. 
Miller plantation. He was married in 1868. He was a brave soldier 
in the Confederate Army through the Civil War, was a member of 
Edgar's Battalion, is a Presbyterian and a Democrat. William 
V. George, another son of John, died in Texas. Thomas A. George 
married Miss Mary Hinchman, a granddaughter of the English set- 
tler, William Hinchman, of near Lowell. He settled on and be- 
came the owner of the Robert Miller farm of several hundred acres 
on Lick Creek near Green Sulphur Springs at the close of the war, 
and lives there to this day. His children are James H. George, cash- 
ier of the Bank of Wyoming, who was sheriff of Summers County 
for four years, from January 1, 1897, to December 31, 1900; and 
John L. George, who resides with his father on Lick Creek; Miss 
Minnie, who married Dr. Edgar E. Noel, and Miss Nina, who mar- 
ried Sam McClurg; and Ella. 

Thomas A. George entered the Confederate Army in 1861, and 
on the 7th day of October, 1863, was captured by the Federal sol- 
diers under Blazer while returning and near his home on a furlough. 
He was carried to Fayetteville and placed in jail; from thence taken 
to Charleston; thence to Wheeling; thence to Camp Chase, where 
he remained for three months ; thence to Rock Island, Illinois, 
where he was detained eighteen months, and released in July, 1865. 
He was married to Miss Mary Symms Hinchman August 31, 1865. 
He is one of the leading citizens of Summers County, engaged in 
farming and stock dealing. 

Dr. P. A. George, of Ronceverte ; Arthur George, of Hinton ; 
Miss Norma, of Colorado, are children of John A. George. The 
Georges are among the most substantial citizens and the oldest 
settlers of this region, and their descendants are scattered over 
many States. 

Another son of Thomas A. George was Rev. Wm. George, an 
accomplished Presbyterian minister, who w r ent West, and in early 
-manhood died from pneumonia. He was a graduate of Hampden 
Sydney College, with bright prospects for the future. Margaret 
Miller, daughter of Robert Miller, the senior, married Alex. Mc- 
Clurg, who settled in Missouri. 

He is one of the main supports of the Presbyterian Church, and 
a Democrat in politics. John George, the father of Thomas A., 
was killed by a horse kicking him, in the barn on the George place 
on Lick Creek while on a visit to that place. 

These Georges are descendants on their mother's side of Robert 



518 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Miller, a half brother of John Miller, Sr., who settled on Lick Creek 
where T. A. George now resides. He was the owner of three slaves 
before the war, and built a large hewed two-story log house on 
the site where the modern frame "residence now stands. The wife 
of Robert Miller was born in Philadelphia, Penn. They left at 
their death eight children, four boys, William, w T ho died at an 
old age in the Meadows at the foot of Sewell Mountain. Before 
removing to the Meadows he owned the Goddard and Dean farms 
on top of the mountain near Elton, and formerly known as the 
Sampson-Zickafoose place. The other sons were John and Alex- 
ander, who never married, and lived and died on the old farm 
where Thomas A. George now lives. They were large land own- 
ers and enterprising men, and operated an ancient mercantile es- 
tablishment on the site of the present Gwinn, Flint & Co. estab- 
lishment. They at times owned large tracts of wild lands on 
Keeney's Knob, Chestnut Mountain, War Ridge, and in Fayette 
County, and w r ere wealthy men in their day. They were both 
buried in the Miller graveyard on the old John Miller, Sr., farm. 
Of the other son, whose name was Robert, we have no history, as 
he emigrated West and was lost sight of. He was understood to 
have settled in Missouri. The four girls of Robert Miller were 
Polly, Betsy, Jean and Margaret. Jean married John Alexander, 
of Monroe County ; Mary married Thomas Ferry and settled in 
Missouri; Betsy married Grigsby Lewis, of the Meadows, and 
Margaret married John George. There was another daughter of 
John George, Sr., Louisa, who married James Houston Miller, who 
removed to Texas, and she died there. 

CARDEN. 

Isaac Carden was of English descent, a native of Botetourt 
County, Virginia, born in 1791, and died August 31, 1863, and is 
buried at Barger's Springs. He was a soldier in the American 
Army in the war with England in 1812, and was at Hamp- 
ton Roads when peace was declared. After being discharged from 
the army by reason of the termination of the war, he located on 
Greenbrier River at what was then, and was for years afterwards, 
known as Carden Springs, later as Barger's Springs, and now as the 
Greenbrier Springs. He built a two-story log house, still standing 
on that property, which is now 107 years old. He purchased that 
farm with his brother, John Carden, who lived where W. J. Tabor 
now resides. Allen Carden lived on the land now owned by E. W. 



JAMES H. GEORGE, 
Ex-Sheriff and Capitalist. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 519 



Taylor; Allen later moved to Tennessee, and John to Illinois. Allen 
was a singing master and author. His nephew, Allen A. Carden, 
now seventy years old, resides in Hinton. 

Isaac Carden left surviving him John M. Carden, the present ef- 
ficient deputy clerk of the County Court of Summers County. I. G. 
Carden and Allen A. Carden ; two girls, Mary J., who married W. H. 
Barger, and Amanda, who married Thomas Webb, who died, leaving 
one child ; McKendrie, who married Andrew L. Campbell. After the 
death of Isaac Carden, the ancestor, the Carden plantation was di- 
vided into five parts, one part to each child. Each of the three 
brothers were brave soldiers in the Confederate Army through the 
Civil War, each being members of Lowry's Battery, each volunteer- 
ing in 1861, and were true and honorable soldiers. J. M. and A. A. 
Carden now reside in Hinton; I. G. resides at Forest Hill; he has 
been deputy sheriff of the county for sixteen years. John M. Carden 
built one of the first hotels in the city of Hinton, which he named the 
Hotchkiss House, after Stonewall Jackson's famous courier, Major 
Jed Hotchkiss. The Carden brothers, sons of A. A. Carden, now 
own and operate The Carden Hardware Company, doing business 
near the court house. Each of the Cardens are enterprising citi- 
zens, among the substantial and progressive people of this region. 



KEATLEY. 

The founder of the Keatley family came from Ireland early in 
the eighteenth century. His name was James Keatley, and he 
settled at the mouth of Indian Creek ; another brother settled in 
Pennsylvania. The two brothers emigrated together from Ireland. 
James Keatley settled at the mouth of Indian, and died, leaving 
five sons, James, Henry, Joseph, John and Wilson. Wilson died 
in the Confederate Army during the Civil War, of which army 
each of the brothers were soldiers, except James. Joseph- located 
in Wyoming County in 1870; Henry on Stinking Lick, in Sum- 
mers County, and John in Mercer County. Joseph returned to 
the mouth of Indian in 1890, purchasing a part of the Fowler plan- 
tation, at which place he died in 1899, leaving surviving Andrew 
Jackson Keatley and George, now residing in Fayette County. 
James now lives at Montgomery, in Fayette County; Louis at the 
same place; Robert is also a resident of Fayette County, and the 
following daughters, Mary, who married George Sanger ; Ellen, 
who married Morris Harvey; Jenny, who married W. D. Light, 



520 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



each of whom reside in Fayette County; Malindy, who married 
Louis Shumate, of Wyoming County ; Ann, who married Mr. 
Houchins. A. J. Keatley and George were twin brothers, born 
May 11, 1868, and for some time they owned jointly and operated 
the lower Indian Creek Mill. In 1904 A. J. Keatley was elected 
sheriff of Summers County, as the regular nominee of the Demo- 
cratic party, which office he has faithfully filled, with Walter P. 
Bowling his efficient deputy, Mr. Keatley's majority being over 
four hundred (400), his opponent being Ashby Brown, of Meadow 
Creek. A. J. Keatley, during his term as sheriff of the county, 
resided at Barger Springs, he and James D. Bolten being the pro- 
prietors of that resort, and are engaged in business under the firm 
name of Bolten & Keatley, having taken charge of that property 
in the year 1905 under a lease for five years. Mr. Keatley married 
Miss Linnie Harvey, a daughter of the late Allen L. Harvey. 

Henry Keatley died at Hinton a few years ago. He was quite 
a celebrated character throughout his early life, being charged, in 
connection with a number of others, in the commission of various 
offenses in violation of law, and spent some time in jail, charged 
with the burning of Walker & Peter's tobacco barn, convicted at 
one trial and new trial given, and he was proven to be innocent. 
He was a man of shrewd sense, and left surviving him two sons, 
Jorden and James, and one daughter, Lydia, who married Samuel 
Nunley, who lives on Madam's Creek. 

James Keatley lived to an advanced age, and died recently at 
the old Keatley homestead at the mouth of Indian. Each of the 
Keatley brothers were Democrats in politics, and strong secession- 
icts, except James, who was a strong Union man and Republican ; 
he married a Garten, one of a family of the first settlers of the New 
River Valley of Summers County — a daughter of Goodall Garten, 
who was an ancient horse-trader and who settled, lived and died 
on Xew River opposite GatlifFs Bottom, and owned an island in 
New River at that point. James Keatley left two sons, John and 
Lewis, now dead. Wilson Keatley was the father of ''Squire" 
James M. Keatley at Indian Mills, dying during the war. His 
son, James M., owns the old homestead and was elected a justice 
of the peace of Forest Hill District, and held the office to the sat- 
isfaction of his constituents for four years, and is an enterprising 
farmer. There are a number of the descendants of the original 
James Keatley in this section of the State. Sheriff A. J. Keatley 
has two boys, Harvey and Joseph, and one daughter, Virginia. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



521 



FORD. 

William Harrison Ford, one of the substantial farmers of Lick 
Creek, was born in Greenbrier County April 13, 1816. He is still 
hale and hearty, and has lived all his life in this region. He came 
to the county from Sewell, in Fayette County, eighteen years ago, 
purchasing the William B. McNeer place on Slater's Creek, where 
he resides with his son, Rufus H. Ford, one of the substantial and 
enterprising men of the county, and who married Miss Dora Har- 
row. The other sons of William H. Ford are John H., who mar- 
ried Miss Arathusa Duncan ; Wallace A., who married Miss Sabina 
George, and now residing in Fayette County, and two daughters, 
Cyntha Alice, who married Walter H. Boude, the present clerk of 
the circuit court, and Martha, who married John Gibson, of Fay- 
ette County. 

The land on which Mr. Ford now lives ivas granted by the 
commonwealth to a man by the name of Slater, who sold the place 
for a gun and buckskin waistcoat. Later, the land came into the 
ownership of John C. and William Xewton McNeer, heirs of Wil- 
liam B. McNeer, who sold to the present owner. 

FREDEKING. 

There were three brothers emigrated from Germany in 1848, 
who located in Southwest Virginia — Charles Fredeking, Carl A. 
Fredeking and Lee Fredeking. They each removed to Summers 
County in 1873, locating in Hinton, and were three of the first 
settlers of that town. They were each educated Germans, well 
instructed in English and enterprising gentlemen. Lee engaged 
in mercantile pursuits, and died a few years after his settlement, 
leaving a widow, the venerable Mrs. Martha Fredeking, who is 
the mother of Mrs. Robert R. Flannagan; Lee, ivho is a telegraph 
.operator in Hinton, and W. L. Fredeking, who is a jeweler, and is 
now one of the wealthy men of that city, prominent in business 
affairs, the present president of the Hinton Water, Light & Sup- 
ply Company, a stockholder in the Bank of Summers and numerous 
other business enterprises and corporations, and has been recorder 
of the city of Hinton for three terms. Otto Fredeking, another 
son, is a locomotive engineer and director in the Citizens Bank, 
and interested in various business enterprises. 

Charles Fredeking engaged in mercantile pursuits, an artist of 
ability and reputation. He originated and had constructed under 



522 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY/ WEST VIRGINIA. 



his direction the first theatrical enterprise established in Hinton; 
painted the scenery throughout with his own hands. He died 
several years ago, leaving his son, A. G. Fredeking, a locomotive 
engineer, a deputy game and fish warden under Governor's Daw- 
son's administration, and three daughters, Miss Lena, who married 
P. K. Litsinger; Miss Laura, who married L. E. Dyke, and Mrs. 
Hazeltine, the milliner. 

Carl Alexander Fredeking, the third brother, lived for many 
years after the death of the two older brothers, Charles and Lee. 
He lived to see the city of Hinton grow from an insignificant ham- 
let of no population, into a strong, populous and wealthy town of 
more than 6,000 souls. He was an enlightened and enterprising 
man, a merchant and soldier of fortune, engaged at one time in the 
export of timber to Europe, and took a lively interest in political 
affairs. He died on the 14th day of May, 1907, at his home in 
Hinton, respected by all men. After emigrating to America when 
the Crimean War was declared, he was in Louisville, Ky. He 
enlisted a company of soldiers for that war, carried them to New- 
foundland, across the Atlantic Ocean, enlisted under the flag of 
Great Britain and the allied armies against Russia. He fought at 
the battle of Balaklava, and took a part in the famous charge in 
that fight. After the termination of this war, he returned to South- 
west Virginia, and in 1873 came to Hinton, first engaging in the 
mercantile business, building the store and residence building now 
owned by Dr. Fox, on the corner of Ballangee Street and Second 
Avenue, which was then a barren field, which showed his faith in 
the future of the town. Later, he engaged in the export of walnut 
timber to Europe, and in 1878 had a large and valuable cargo lying 
in the James River, awaiting transportation, when the flood came 
and carried all of his accumulations out to sea, thereby losing his 
entire fortune. About this time he returned to Germany, married 
Miss Helena Schmidt, who survives. He was twice justice of the 
peace and was coroner for the county at the time of his death. 
He left surviving Herbert, Walter, Carl, Julian and Frankie, who 
married Wm. Callison, and Miss Alice, who married A. G. Flana- 
gan, all residents of the city of Hinton ; and Miss Josie, who mar- 
ried Dr. Timberlake, of Fayette County. He was justice of the 
peace for eight years, and one of the main supports of the Presby- 
terian Church from the date of its organization until his death. 
The Fredekings have always been prominent in the affairs of the 
county from its formation practically. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



523 



ALDERSON. 

The Aldersons were among the first settlers west of the Alle- 
gheny Mountains. George Alderson was the first pioneer Baptist 
minister west of that range, and settled at the town of Alderson 
and organized the Missionary Baptist Church in this region of the 
country. His descendants still live at the same place, for whom 
that town is named, Hon. George Alderson being the owner of the 
land on which the town is built. Curtis Alderson was the name 
of the original settler in America and the founder of all the gen- 
erations of Aldersons. He was banished from England, made his 
escape, was recaptured, and by his captivating persuasiveness, the 
captain of the ship on which he was confined agreed to convey him 
to America, upon his agreeing to work for seven years in consid- 
eration therefor. At the end of the seven years' service he married 
the daughter of this captain, whose name was Curtis, he thus taking 
the name of his wife's father. One of his descendants, Curtis Aider- 
son, settled on Lick Creek at the foot of Keeney's Knob, where he 
built a modern two-story log house, and raised a large family. This 
place is now owned by Mr. Daubenspeck, and is known to this day 
as the "Curtis Alderson" place. It was granted to Samuel Withrow 
by Governor James Wood, June 27, 1790, Withrow being assignee 
of James Claypool, assignee of Wm. Dunbar. At the time the 
Indians killed Thomas Griffith two miles below Alderson town on 
the Greenbrier River, and in escaping with the prisoner, Griffith's 
boy, they passed down Lick Creek and slept one mile below the 
Curtis Alderson place, while the white men were pursuing, camped 
at this place. Lina Minis Alderson was a son of Curtis Alderson, 
and lived to be an old man at the low gap between Laurel and 
Lick Creek, where he owned a good mountain plantation, where 
his daughter, Sally, who married Henry Shepheard, now lives. 
His first wife was a Dunsmore, of Sink's Grove, in Monroe County, 
and was an aunt of Prof. J. G. Dunsmore, now conducting the 
Dunsmore Business College at Staunton, Virginia. His second wife 
was a Peters, a descendant of Christian Peters, and was a sister of 
the wife of Columbus Wran Withrow. now living at New Richmond, 
and a niece of Mrs. Rebecca Pack, the widow of Anderson Pack, 
now living at Burden, Kansas, ninety-seven years of age. L. M. 
Alderson left two sons, James W., who married a daughter of 
Thomas Louis George, of Greenbrier County, and is now a mer- 
chant at Foss. Peter L. Alderson, the other son, married a daueh- 



524 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

ter of one Marion Gwinn, and is a prosperous farmer, residing in 
the State of Kansas. Asa Alderson, another son of Curtis, also 
lived on Keeney's Knob Mountain, on a tract of land adjoining his 
brother, L. M. Alderson. Over this 100 acres of ground he and 
Captain A. A. Miller had their famous law suit, which was finally 
decided by the Supreme Court of Virginia in favor of Alderson, 
and is reported in the Grattan reports. Governor Price was the 
losing attorney. Samson, a son of Asa Alderson, lives near Frank- 
fort, in Greenbrier County, and his son, Charles M. Alderson, is 
the practicing attorney at Charleston, W. Va. Another son owns 
the Alderson Academy at Alderson, W. Va. All of the remainder 
of the Alderson generation of the Summers branch have long since 
emigrated to other countries. Major J. Coleman Alderson, who 
married a daughter of Governor Samuel Price, and courier for 
Stonewall Jackson, and a chivalrous, courtly gentleman, resides 
at Charleston. Hon. John Duffy Alderson, who represented the 
Third W est Virginia District for Congress three terms, is a son 
of Joseph Alderson, and resides at Summerville, in Nicholas County. 
They are all direct descendants of the original Curtis Alderson. 

John Alderson, the first of the name, visited the upper end of 
this county in 1775, with his brother-in-law, William Morriss, 
each bringing a patent for 1,200 acres. John Alderson made his 
survey so -as to include the bottom lands at and just below the 
town of Alderson, which lapped over on a part of the Lewis survey, 
Lane's Bottom, so named from the fact that it was once owned 
by General Lane, and over which there was extended litigation in 
the local and Supreme Courts. Alderson built his cabin on the 
identical spot where John W. Alderson's hotel now stands. This 
was Rev. John Alderson, the pioneer Baptist preacher. There are 
some of the descendants of this John Alderson residing on Griffith's 
Creek, namely, Joseph and James. 

BROWN. 

William Brown is now sixty-five years old, born March 17, 1842. 
His father's name was William Brown, who moved from Monroe 
County and settled in Pipestem District; his grandfather's name 
was William Brown, a native of Scotland, who emigrated from that 
country. The present William Brown married Cornelia Hale, of 
Giles County, Virginia, on the 14th of November, 1868. They have 
seven children, Robert, Edmond, Lee, Rufus, Daniel, Sira W., who 
was killed in March, 1897, by W. B. Clough, who was tried for 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 525 

murder in the Summers Court, convicted of manslaughter, and 
sentenced to the penitentiary for one year; Wilmeth, who married 
Dan Tolly; Edna, who married Grat Williams; Lucinda, unmarried. 
William Brown was a member of the 17th Regiment, Virginia 
Cavalry, Co. A. His captain was Henly French. He was in the 
battle of Gettysburg, and one of the detail to guard 5,000 prisoners 
(Federal soldiers) captured on the first day of the battle. It was 
here that Robert Gore alone captured a company of 100 Union 
soldiers and marched them into camp. This feat of bravery was 
witnessed by William Brown. Captain Bob Gore was made cap- 
tain of Co. D, 17th Virginia Cavalry, promoted on the first day of 
the fight for his gallantry in battle. William Brown was in the 
principal battles of this war ; was at Morefield and Winchester. 
He was nineteen years old when he enlisted in August, 1861, and 
was. at the surrender at Appomattox on April 9, 1865, and was never 
absent except on leave from his superiors. He was at the Flat Top 
fight, May 2, 1862, between General Cox, commanding the Fed- 
erals, and Colonel Marshall ; also at the fight at the Pigeon 
Roost, at Princeton, between General Marshall, commanding the 
Confederates, and General Cox, the Unionist ; was at Monocasy 
Junction in Maryland, where his company went in with 120 men 
and came out with sixty; at the Spottsylvania Court House, fight- 
ing for ten days in succession under Lee after the fall of Richmond. 
He is a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, a 
Christian citizen and a worthy man. 

HOBBS. 

There are two families of Hobbs in the county, one of which is 
of the very first settlers of the city of Hinton, James H. Hobbs, 
who located on the island in Avis in the early history of the town 
about 1874. He married a Miss Foster, a daughter of James E. 
Foster, of the Wolf Creek Mountain, and reared a large family of 
children. He now resides in Jumping Branch District, his wife 
having died a few years ago. His son, Cyrus C. Hobbs, resides 
in Hinton, and is a painter and an employe of the C. &. O. Railway 
Company, and was a sergeant in Co. A, First Regiment, West 
Virginia Volunteer Infantry in the Spanish-American War of 1898, 
and was in service throughout that war. James H. Hobbs, the 
founder of the family in the county, is a carpenter by trade and 
an educated and intelligent gentleman, celebrated for his wit and 
good sense — a strong, old : time Republican, who was one of the 



526 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



founders of the party and organizers of it in this county. For the 
past few years he has been engaged in farming and teaching school. 
He is generally known as the "mayor of Leatherwood," he being 
the owner of the old Williams farm on that branch. He was a 
constable for four years, elected in Greenbrier District when 
the same was Democratic, and has filled other important positions. 
He is quite an intellectual gentleman; frequently writes for the 
public press. His daughters teach in the high school at Hinton. 

THOMAS NASH READ. 

Thomas Nash Read is by birth a native of Danville, Virginia, 
having been born in that city on the 18th day of February, 1868. 
His father's name was Thomas N. Read, and he was an accom- 
plished doctor of dentistry. He was accustomed to spend the sum- 
mers at the noted summer resort, Greenbrier White Sulphur 
Springs, and in the year 1870, while en route over the Chesapeake 
& Ohio Railway to that place, was killed in a railway accident at 
Jerry's Run, on the Virginia side of the Allegheny Mountains. 
The railroad track ran along the mountain beside a deep ravine, 
called Jerry's Run. The train left the track, which was on trestles, 
and rolled down the mountain side into the ravine, killing thirteen 
persons instantly, one of whom was Dr. Read. 

Prior to the date of this accident, there existed no laws in the 
State of Virginia or West Virginia by which damages could be 
recovered for the death of a person caused by the neglect, care- 
less or criminal intent of another, and this accident being so ter- 
rible in its consequences, the neglect of the railway company being 
so apparent, that the statesmen of those days took the matter up, 
and the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia pro- 
ceeded to pass an enactment, fixing a pecuniary liability of not 
exceeding $10,000.00 for a death caused by that character of ac- 
cident, which enactment in that State was later followed by the 
present West Virginia laws on the same subject. 

Mr. Read's mother was Rebecca S. Barksdale, of Halifax 
County, Virginia, and a sister of Dr. William Leigh Barksdale, a 
prominent practicing physician and surgeon, now residing in Hin- 
ton. She now resides with her sons, Thomas N. and Leigh. He 
has one brother, Dr. E. L. Read, a dentist, now residing and prac- 
ticing his profession in the city of Baltimore, he having married 
Emma Gwinn, of Bloomington, 111., a daughter of Jackson Gwinn, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



527 



who removed to the western country many years ago, being one of 
the Lowell Gwinns. 

Mrs. Read removed with her sons to Alderson, in Monroe 
County, Avhen the subject of this sketch was seven years of age, 
and in which town he grew to manhood, attending the. public 
schools and the Alderson Academy, later taking a literary course 
at Hampden Sidney College, the noted Presbyterian school, lo- 
cated in Prince Edward County, Virginia, after the completion of 
which he took the law course of the University of Virginia, under 
the celebrated law professors, John B. Minor, author of "Minor's 
Institutes," and Gilmore, of 1899-90. 

He was first admitted to the practice of the law and received 
his license in Virginia in the year 1890, and was admitted to the 
bar in Virginia in 1891, beginning active practice at Newcastle, in 
Craig County, having located for that purpose in Newcastle, the 
county seat of said county, where he practiced by himself for a 
short period, but soon after locating, formed a co-partnership for the 
practice of the law with the Hon. James W. Marshall, known all 
over Virginia as "Cyclone Jim," which partnership was dissolved 
in 1894, when he removed to Hinton and formed a law partnership 
with James H. Miller, the writer, on the first day of July, 1894, 
which partnership continued until the election of the latter to the 
judgeship of the Ninth West Virginia Circuit, on December 1, 1904, 
since which time he has continued in the practice of his profession 
in Summers, Monroe, Greenbrier and Fayette Counties, the part- 
nership name of the old firm having been Miller & Read, he suc- 
ceeding to the business of the old firm and concluding all of the 
unfinished business, which was extensive for a county of the popu- 
lation and wealth of Summers. 

James H. Miller was the prosecuting attorney of the county at 
the date of the formation of the firm of Miller & Read, and Mr. Read 
at once qualified as an assistant, and which position he filled during 
- the remainder of that term and for the next succeeding term, to 
which he was elected in 1896. His fulfillment of the duties of that 
position was able, consistent and conscientious. He is an able and 
faithful attorney. The associations of the writer with him for a 
period of ten years gave him an exceptional opportunity to learn 
of his ability, his honesty as an attorney, as well as his short- 
comings, and it is a pleasure to record the testimony as to this 
gentleman's manly character. We consider him in the front rank 
of his profession, well worthy of the full confidence of his clients. 

He is a Democrat in politics and an Episcopalian in his religious 



528 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



connections, having the confidence and esteem of his political as- 
sociates, frequently stumping the county in the interest of its can- 
didates, and is one of the trustees and vestrymen of his church. 

In 1905 he was married to Miss Nannie D. McCartney, of Craig 
County, Virginia, a daughter of Captain Thomas B. McCartney, of 
that county, an old Confederate veteran, for many years clerk of 
the county court, and an "old Virginia gentleman." 

Mr. Read was a candidate for the office of prosecuting attorney 
in this county at the election of 1900, having received the nomina- 
tion at the Democratic primary over one of the favorite "sons of 
Summers," the popular and well-esteemed Charles Allen Clark, 
now practicing law in San Francisco, Cal., but was defeated at the 
polls by fourteen votes, as shown by the returns of the board of 
canvassers, by Hon. Frank Lively, the present Assistant Attorney- 
General of this State. It was over this election and the Read vote 
at the court house precinct that the Republican organization re- 
ceived the famous appellation of ''Blue Pencil Brigade," given to 
it by Mr. Howard Templeton, then editor and proprietor of the 
"Independent Herald," a newspaper then published in Hinton, the 
claim being made by the Democrats that a man by the name of 
Smith, one of the election commissioners at the court house, while 
counting the vote in that ward on the night of the election, and in 
taking out the ballots from the box, smoothing them out and pass- 
ing them on to another commissioner to read; and after reading 
them, had passed them on to a third commissioner, to be strung 
on a string arranged for the purpose, Mr. Read's name was erased 
from thirty-six of the first eighty ballots counted, a blue pencil being 
used in making the erasures.. When eighty ballots had been 
counted, the other commissioners discovered that something im- 
proper was being done, the count was stopped, and an investigation 
made, which revealed something of these facts, after which the 
count proceeded. The honest commissioners watched, and no fur- 
ther suspicious erasures were discovered on the remaining 200 
ballots counted after the dicovery. This Mr. Smith has ever after 
been designated as "Fishy Smith," he at one time having been fish 
and game warden. 

That this fraud was perpetrated has never been successfully 
denied, although it has been alleged frequently and continuously 
from that day to this, in and out of the public prints, by reliable, 
responsible and truthful persons of a political faith opposite to that 
of Mr. Read. Mr. Smith later became a captain in the war with 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 529 



Spain, and is now a citizen of Richmond, Virginia, in the coal 
agency business. 

At the election in 1904, Mr. R. F. Dunlap was elected prosecut- 
ing attorney on the Democratic ticket, and upon taking the office 
on the 1st day of January, 1905, Mr. Read, upon his motion, took 
the oath as assistant prosecutor, which position he has held to the 
present time, and still retains. 

Mr. Read is a pleasant speaker, with considerable oratorical 
powers. He has been engaged as counsel on one side or the other 
in practically all of the principal cases tried in the courts of the 
county within the last ten years, and has had considerable practice 
in the Supreme Court of Appeals of the State, equal to that of any 
other attorney in this section of the State. He was senior counsel 
in the celebrated case of Pence and Davis vs. Carney et al., con- 
cerning the Pence's Springs property, lately determined by the 
highest legal tribunal of the State. He has one child, a lad of nine 
years of age, named Thomas Leigh Read. 

He is attorney for the city of Hinton, New River Grocery Co., 
Hinton Hardware Co., National Bank of Summers, and a number 
of other leading enterprises and leading business men of the county. 

His first law partner was the Virginia statesman, Judge James 
M. Marshall, of New Castle ("Cyclone"), when he was admitted 
to the practice of his profession. He located in Hinton July 1, 1894. 
His brother, Dr. Leigh Read, is a dentist and resident of Baltimore 
City. He is a Democrat in politics, a believer in the doctrines of 
Jefferson, Jackson and Bryan, but has taken no active interest in 
politics outside of the county. He has engaged on one side or the 
other in most of the litigated causes arising in the county since his 
location here in 1894. 

ARCHIE ROY HEFLIN. 

Archie Roy Heflin, attorney at law and prominent member of 
the Hinton Bar, was born in Stafford County, Virginia, on the 18th 
day of September, 1856, his father being Charles Seddan Heflin, a 
relative of Seddan, famous in war times as a prominent Confed- 
erate, and Secretary of War in President Davis' Cabinet. His 
mother was Miss Nannie E. Latham. On the 27th of October, 
1881, he married Miss Ellie Dunlap, of Monroe County, W. Va. 
Judge Heflin was educated at the Virginia Agricultural and Me- 
chanical College at Blacksburg, Va., and took the law course at 
Richmond College, Richmond, Va., graduating at the former in 



530 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



1877 and the latter in 1880, and was the orator at his graduation 
in both of his colleges, winning the $50.00 prize Cochran Medal 
of the Maury Society in the debate on his graduation at the 
Virginia A. and M. College. In 1880 he was unanimously elected 
as final orator of the Mu Signa Rho Society, one of the literary 
societies of the Richmond College, an exceedingly flattering com- 
pliment, as that honor is universally hotly contested for. The 
Society was founded in 1845, and in its history this is the only 
occasion where the honor was bestowed unanimously and without 
opposition. His subject on that occasin was "Perils of States' 
Dishonor," which he handled with great ability and credit, his 
opponent being M. P. Huff, whose subject was "Bismark." The 
subject of his debate at his graduation at the Blacksburg College 
was, "Is the World Advancing in Civilization?" in which he had 
a hard proposition to handle the negative, and it was in this de- 
bate he won the Cochran Gold Medal, awarded by a distinguished 
committee consisting of Hon. John W. Daniel, Hon. John Ran- 
dolph Tucker, and Governor J. Hoge Tyler. He was called back 
to deliver the alumni address in 1881 of this school. 

Judge Heflin is a speaker of great force and very effective, es- 
pecially in his arguments before the jury. He began the practice 
of law at Blacksburg, Va., in 1881, his license being signed by 
the late Judge Moncure, of Stafford, Va., one of the most distin- 
guished jurists that ever occupied a seat on the bench of the Su- 
preme Court of Appeals of Virginia. In 1885 he was elected by 
the Legislature of Virginia to the county judgeship of the dis- 
trict composed of Giles and Bland counties, in Virginia, for a 
term ending in 1891. This court had original criminal jurisdic- 
tion in all criminal probate and fiscal matters, which gave him a 
wide range of experience in his profession. In 1895 Judge Heflin, 
on the 24th day of December, located in Hinton for the practice 
of his profession, forming a copartnership with the late George 
D. Haynes. Mr. Haynes died within a short time, since which 
time he has continued the practice in Summers and adjoining 
counties. 

In 1891 he was appointed by Governor A. B. White as a mem- 
ber of the Board of Directors of the Asylum for the Insane at 
Spencer for a term of two years, and again for a term of four 
years, but resigned in 1905, having filled the position with honor 
to himself and profit to the State. He also served one term as 
city attorney for the city of Hinton, and as assistant prosecuting 
attorney of the county with Hon. Frank Lively, until his resig- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



531 



nation, and then with Hon. E. C. Eagle, until the expiration of 
the full term of four years. Judge Heflin is an accomplished law- 
yer and gentleman. He has a family of four children — Miss 
Archie, who is a student in New York City ; Dunlap, engaged 
with the C. & O. Railway Co. at Lexington, Ky. ; John, a student 
at William & Mary College, and Paul, a student at the Hinton 
High School. 

He has taken an active part in the majority of the contested 
legal battles occurring in the courts of the county since his set- 
tlement in Hinton, on one side or the other. He is considered a 
safe and wise counsellor. 

LEFTWICH. 

There are but two families of this name now residents of 
Summers County — George W. Leftwich, the veteran school teacher, 
and Jabez F., farmer, of Barger's Springs. 

The family is of English origin, emigrating from Europe in 
the latter half of the seventeenth century. Jabez seems to be a 
family name, that being the given name of the grandfather of 
the above-named Jabez and George. He was a soldier in the war 
with England of 1812, and his wife's name was Early, being a 
first cousin of the illustrious Confederate General Jubal A. Early. 
David W. Leftwich, the father of George and "Jabe," was born 
in Bedford County, on February 11th, 1827, and married Nancy 
Jane Williams, of Giles County, Va., February 14th, 1850, and 
died November 29th, 1895, near Talcott, W. Va. He volunteered 
in the Confederate Army in 1861, and served with honor and 
bravery throughout the Civil War in Clark's Battalion, Vawter's 
Company. 

George W. was born August 8, 1851, being the eldest of a 
family of six boys and six girls, and on December 18, 1873, mar- 
ried Miss Sarah J. Ellison, whose grandfather was the celebrated 
Indian fighter at the time the Indians and whites had a fort on 
Crump's Bottom, and others on New River below Indian Creek. 
He began early life in the occupation of farming and teaching 
school, which he continues to the present day, and is one of the 
oldest and most successful teachers in the county. He was also 
one of the promoters and builders of the lower large grist mill 
on Indian Creek, at Indian Mills, just below the mouth of Brad- 
shaw's Run. In 1894 he was elected superintendent of free 
schools for a full term, which position he filled "with great ability 



532 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and to the satisfaction of his constituents, being elected by about 
300 majority in a Democratic county. Mr. Leftwich being a con- 
sistent Republican in politics, his election was a compliment to 
his honesty and capacity, and he is the second Republican elected 
to that office in the county, having been the regular nominee of 
his party, the other member of that party being Mr. J. F. Lilly, 
who ran as an independent candidate, back in the 80's. Mr. Ira 
W. Leftwich, the accomplished hardware salesman for Belknap 
& Co., is his eldest son. Mr. Leftwich is also an enterprising 
farmer and a gentleman of character, well informed and well edu- 
cated. 

Jabez F. Leftwich is one of the most enterprising and thrifty 
farmers of Talcott District, and owns one of the neatest planta- 
tions and homes in the county, adjoining the Bacon plantation 
near Barger's Springs. He married Miss Ellison, and has reared 
a family of grown children, all enterprising and intelligent, his 
eldest son, Earl, being engaged with the C. & O. Railway, and 
another son is in Colorado for his health. One daughter married 
Mac Nowlan, Esq., of Pence Springs, and one daughter is at home. 
He is one of the best citizens in the county. Hon. J. F. Leftwich, 
now a member of the State Senate, elected in 1906, a prominent 
lawyer of Boone County, is a cousin, as is also Everett Leftwich, 
an attorney of Mingo County, and also Leftwich, attor- 

ney, of Mississippi. Robert W. Leftwich, a brother of George 
W. and J. F. Leftwich, took a course in medicine; resided for 
some years at Talcott, then removed to Texas and died there a 
few years ago, while engaged in the practice of his profession. 

CUNDIFF. 

Wm. R. CundifT . was a locomotive engineer, and one of the 
first settlers in Hinton, being a native of Virginia, emigrating to 
Gauley Bridge, and after the construction of the Chesapeake & 
Ohio Railway removing to Hinton with his family, consisting of his 
wife, Annie CundifT, and his sons, Frank and Ollie, and one daugh- 
ter, Mamie, who afterwards married Charles H. Hetzel, the barber. 

He was by occupation a locomotive engineer of the Chesa- 
peake & Ohio Railway Co., having been on the road since 1878, 
and on the 18th of February, 1881, he was killed by his engine 
running into a slide at Moss Run Fill. His widow was formerly 
Miss Annie Kilcollins, of Amherst County, Virginia, of which 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 533 



county Mr. Cundiff was also a native, and she still resides in this 
city. 

Frank Cundiff, the oldest son, born at Blue Ridge Springs, 
Va., 1874, is also a very competent and trusted locomotive rail- 
way engineer of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co., running 
west of Hinton. His picture will be seen on the little shed or the 
end of the double porch of the log building formerly standing in 
the center of the railroad yard near the roundhouse, he being the 
one on the left leaning against the one-story log building. He is 
now thirty-three years old, and was married on the 6th day of Oc- 
tober, 1898, to Miss Eunice Hutchinson, of Elton, a daughter of 
Michael and Mary Hutchinson, in this county. He has three chil- 
dren — Edith, Bernice and Frank, Jr. I am indebted to him for the 
photograph which he had preserved of that old landmark. W. R. 
Cundiff married Sarah A. Kilcollins, of Blue Ridge Springs, Bed- 
ford County, Virginia. 

JOHN HINTON. 

This gentleman resides two and one-half miles from the court 
house, on Madam's Creek. He is a son of Captain John Hinton, 
the first settler in the county, and a brother of Evan Hinton. His 
father at one time owned the land on which the city of Avis is 
now built. He was born in Rockingham County, Virginia, his 
wife being a Maddy, from Greenville, in Monroe County, a daugh- 
ter of John Maddy. He had been in the habit of coming to the 
mouth of the Greenbrier River during his boyhood, with his father, 
John Hinton, on hunting excursions, and when he was about ten 
years of age his father purchased the Henry and Isaac Ballengee 
land at the mouth of the Greenbrier River at Avis. 

The only child of John Hinton is his son, John Wayne Hinton, 
a valued citizen of Jumping Branch District — a farmer. He lives 
adjoining his cousin, Silas R. Hinton, a son of Evan. John Hinton 
was one of the sureties on the first sheriff's bond ever executed in 
the county, that of his brother Evan. He can tell of many of the 
pioneer reminiscences, and the way things were done in this then 
wilderness in his boyhood days. The Hintons are loyal Democrats 
in party faith, and Missionary Baptists in their religious faith. 

He says merchandise in those days was shipped to the imme- 
diate region around where Hinton is now located and the upper 
end of the county from Lynchburg and Richmond overland. At 
the time Mr. Hinton moved to the mouth of Greenbrier there were 



\ 
V 



534 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



no roads — nothing but bridle paths ; — and there were plenty of 
deer, wild turkeys and bear in the woods. The Avis Hinton prop- 
erty was bought by his father from Henry Ballangee. There was 
no church then nearer Hinton than Alderson, twenty-one miles. 
The pioneer preachers were beginning to come into the region, 
however, and were permitted to preach at the private residences 
of the farmers. There were no schools or school houses. Mr. 
Hinton remembers John Rollyson, one of the foremost teachers in 
those times. Robert Commack was an old teacher, but his day 
was about 1860, and following the war. Green Lively- was a cap- 
tain of militia, and Wilson Lively the colonel. Colonel Wilson 
Lively lived at the old Graham log house, now resided in by Bun 
Kesler, at Lowell, until his death during the war, being a brave 
Confederate soldier. He was the father of our townsman, Frank 
Lively, the lawyer. There was no postoffice nearer than Union, 
a distance of twenty-five miles. 

John Hinton was mustered into the service of the Confederate 
Army at the mouth of Big Bluestone. In the days of the militia, 
Evan Hinton, the brother of John, was a captain, and the place of 
muster was at Jumping Branch. Lewis .Upton was orderly ser- 
geant. Soon after the declaration of war, Mr. Hinton volunteered 
and joined the company of Captain Philip Thurmond, and was 
attached to General John Echol's Brigade. John Hinton was one 
of the pioneers, a man of strict honor and integrity. 

He suffered much financially, by reason of his being one of the 
bondsmen of his brother, Evan Hinton, the first sheriff of Sum- 
mers County. John Wayne Hinton is his only son, and he and 
his father reside together. He was an early neighbor of the Foxes, 
who lived at the place where Brooks Postoffice is now located, 
which is at the mouth of Brooks Creek, four miles west of Hinton, 
was originally settled by Mr. Brooks, who sold out his possessions 
at that place to David Fox, who died several years ago. David 
Fox owned the farm at the mouth of Brooks Creek, on which the 
little village of Brooks is now located, as well as the postofiice, 
there being two stores there at this time, owned by R. Meadows 
and James Samples, and half a dozen houses. 

The brother of David Fox, Samuel, resided about a mile above 
Brooks, at what is now known as Barksdale, where he died dur- 
ing the war, leaving se\^eral daughters, who still reside on the 
premises, and one son, George, who resides in Greenbrier County, 
at Dawson. David Fox was the father of Charles R., Samuel H. 
and James PL, who all reside at Brooks Postoffice, who are each 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



535 



thrifty, well-to-do and prosperous farmers, each having money in 
bank and owe no debts. They are noted for being the possessors 
of fine horse-flesh. Joseph is now living in parts unknown, having 
emigrated to Parkersburg, in this State, and afterwards going to 
parts unknown, having failed in business. 

THE HINTON-RICHMOND FIGHT. 

William C. Richmond was a son of Samuel Richmond, raised 
at Richmond Falls, and was a man of tremendous physical 'power. 
Evan Hinton, the "Father of the County," son of Jack (John) 
Hinton, was also a man of great physical strength ; Richmond 
being a large-boned, tall, sinewy man, while Hinton was short, 
active and muscular. 

Before the war it was very fashionable for the young men of 
the country to have wrestling matches, which very frequently 
ended in fights, as a test of manhood. Some of the neighbors of 
these gentlemen desiring to see a contest of their strength, told 
Evan Hinton that "Bill" Richmond had stated that he "could 
whip 'Jack' Hinton and all of his boys," for the purpose of incit- 
ing a fight for the amusement of the neighborhood. Evan imme- 
diately wrote to Richmond what he had heard, telling him if it 
was true to meet him, with his friends, at the farm just opposite 
Tug Creek, across New River, on the Raleigh side, below Hinton, 
and he "would show him whether he could whip 'Jack' Hinton 
and all of his boys." Richmond replied that he would be on 
hands. 

On the day appointed Richmond was on the grounds bright 
and early with his friends, and Hinton was there with his friends. 
They had each other searched for dangerous weapons, and, none 
being found, they stripped for the fray. Richmond was more ju- 
dicious than Hinton, having put on a rotten shirt, so that when 
Hinton grappled it his holds would break, Hinton having put on 
a shirt of strong make, and they went at it. It was about an 
equal show-down, sometimes one being down and the other on 
top, and so back and forth, until finally Richmond got Hinton 
down and got on top of him and had him in very bad shape, until 
Hinton managed to get Richmond's finger in his mouth. John 
Hinton said to Evan, "Come out from under there, Evan," and the 
friends of Richmond were encouraging him likewise to hold him 
down while he had him ; Hinton having the finger of Richmond in 
his mouth, biting it with all his power, the pain became so severe 



536 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



that Richmond could stand it no longer, and cried ''Enough!" 
Leftwich Barker, a brother-in-law of Hinton's, told Richmond he 
would have to "holler" louder; that that wouldn't do; so Rich- 
mond yelled "Enough !" The parties then separated and the fight 
ended. 

Y\ nile Hinton was the victor, his punishment was possibly 
more severe than Richmond's. He became violently sick and 
suffered very severely. After the fight was over the young men 
shook hands, and there was no more of it from that day until the 
death of each, they being neighbors and friends until their deaths, 
both living to be very aged men. This fight was celebrated 
throughout the country, and is frequently referred to by the older 
citizens, Evan Hinton and William Richmond having both de- 
tailed the facts to the writer years ago. Richmond Avas afterwards 
a Union soldier and Hinton a Confederate soldier. Richmond was 
known throughout the country as ''Devil Bill''' Richmond. He 
was afterwards a member of the Legislature from Raleigh County, 
justice of the peace, and high in the councils of the Republican 
party; while Evan Hinton became the sheriff and the "Father of 
Summers County." 

Richmond was arrested at one time by the Confederate bush- 
whackers or scouts, and was taken on horseback behind one of 
the soldiers. In traveling through the mountains after night, he, 
desiring to make his escape, being astride the horse, holding on 
to the man in front, who held the bridle, took out his knife and 
deliberately cut the man's throat from the rear, slid off his horse 
and escaped. The man Avhose throat was cut, however, fortu- 
nately did not die from the wounds. 

To show the fighting proclivity of the young men in those 
days, we give another instance of Evan Hinton and his father. 
They were driving hogs through the country and met with an- 
other party, and when they came in sight "Jack" Hinton, Evan's 
father, told Evan that they would have to thrash those people; 
so when they got together, Evan, after a hard-fought battle, cap- 
tured his man, after considerable worry and distress, and on hap- 
pening to think of his father, he looked back to see if he needed 
any assistance ; but the old gentleman had already thrashed his 
opponent, and was sitting on the bank of the road watching Evan 
complete his job. This story is not given in detail, and is quite 
an interesting yarn ; but it has been so long since its recitation to 
the writer that he has forgotten it, and is unable to give it in its 
interesting details. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 537 



M'GINNIS. 

James H. McGinnis, of Raleigh County, was for thirty years 
identified with Summers County as a practicing attorney. He was 
one of the very few lawyers who could consistently and consci- 
entiously practice his profession in this section of the State after 
the war. While he was a Union man, he was not one of that 
character who practiced or believed in oppressing his unfortunate 
neighbor who cast his lot with the fallen Confederacy, and he will 
always be remembered by the old Confederate soldiers and by 
their descendants for his conservatism, and for his aid in relieving 
them from the shackles of disfranchisement and test-oathism prac- 
ticed for some years on powerless and defenseless citizens. While 
the elective franchise was by the Government cast upon igno- 
rant black men, educated, intelligent and patriotic white men were 
denied the rights of citizenship — citizens, but decitizenized. 

Mr, McGinnis was born of poor parents of Irish ancestry. He 
had but little opportunities — none of wealth or station, or the pres- 
tige of an influential class. His educational opportunities were 
limited. For many years after he became celebrated as an advo- 
cate and the most celebrated wit of his time and State, he wore 
the homespun garments of the backwoods, and without shame for 
the necessity. He enjoyed life ; took things as they came, whether 
in prosperity or adversity, and his greatest ambition was not to 
lay up riches. He practiced his profession in all the counties 
around, including Raleigh, Greenbrier, Monroe, Mercer, McDow- 
ell, Kanawha, Fayette and Boone, and in the United States and 
Supreme Court of Appeals. We doubt if there was another law- 
yer ever lived within the confines of the State who had so . wide 
a range of practice as he enjoyed in his young and middle life. 
There were no means of transportation in those days except horse- 
back. Years ago he located in Raleigh County, at Beckley, and 
-there continued to reside until his death. He was prosecuting at- 
torney of his county. In 1888 he was, without desire, effort, or 
even his knowledge, nominated as the Republican candidate for 
Congress in the Third West Virginia District against Hon. John 
Duffy Alderson, of Nicholas County. The returns showed his elec- 
tion by about 200 votes. The election was contested. Mr. Al- 
derson was given the certificate of election by a Democratic Gov- 
ernor, Hon. E. Willis Wilson, and the contest was never tried. 
The term of two years expired before the case was reached on the 



538 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



calendar. He was a candidate for judge of the circuit court at one 
time when the district was Democratic, and was defeated. At 
another time his friends ran him for the same office, and the nomi- 
nation was his, had he seen proper to resort to certain manipula- 
tions ; but he declined, and the nomination and the office went to his 
opponent. He was an accomplished criminal lawyer, as well as in 
the general practice, and his equal as a "pleader" is seldom found in 
any land. He attended the courts regularly in Summers at each 
term for many years, and was engaged in many of the earlier fa- 
mous cases tried therein. He defended Lee Young for killing his 
father, John L. Young; Jordan Keatley and his father, for the 
burning of the tobacco barn of Henry Peters arid C. W. Walker; 
the Willis-Dickinson case (indictment for buggery) ; the Evan 
Hinton cases ; the court house location litigation, and many other 
celebrated causes. At one time he practiced in our county as a 
partner of Hon. Elbert Fowler, as McGinnis & Fowler. He was 
the best generally known practitioner from without the county. 
His brilliancy and witticisms were known far and wide. While a 
Republican in politics, it was without arrogance or narrowness. 
It was from principle, and not the politics of the demagogue or 
the office-hunter. In 1904 a strong effort was made to induce 
him to permit the use of his name as a Republican candidate for 
judge of the Ninth Circuit, but he declined by reason of his dis- 
taste for political strife and his advancing years, and supported 
with all his vigor the Democratic candidate, and aided very ma- 
terially in securing his election. He wrote as many as 500 letters 
under his own hand to his old friends and clients requesting the 
support of his choice. 

His funeral was preached in the [Methodist Church at Beckley, 
and a great concourse of people out of respect attended the ser- 
vices. He was a Mason, and was buried by that fraternal order. 
In his early days he taught school, and there are people now living 
in Raleigh County who owe to his teaching all the education they 
have. 

His son, William Hereford McGinnis, married a daughter of 
Rev. William Holroyd, of Athens, and the vote of Summers 
County was cast for him by 250 majority in the election of 1902, 
at which he was elected to the State Senate for a term of four 
years. He has also been the prosecuting attorney of Raleigh 
County and is one of its most prominent lawyers and Democrats, 
he and his father differing in their political faith. He represented 
his district four years in the State Senate, and has served his county 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



539 



four years as prosecuting attorney, and is now one of the leading 
lawyers in the State and practicing in our county. 

A kinsman, Hon. T. J. McGinnis, is judge of the criminal court 
of Raleigh County. 

His son, John Douglas McGinnis, is also a practicing attorney 
at Beckley, and his son-in-law, Mr. T. K. Scott, is the postmaster 
of that town. 

WOODSON HARVEY. 

The first man convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary 
from this county was Woodson Harvey. He was indicted, tried 
and convicted for the murder of Til Thrasher in 1875. At the 
time of this killing for which he was sent to the penitentiary, 
James Keatley was selling whisky at the mouth of Indian Creek, 
near where C. A. Barber now lives. There was a Baptist Associa- 
tion or meeting of some kind in that country, at Barton's Ridge, 
and Thrasher and Harvey had been to Keatley's grog shop and 
secured a supply of whisky, and went to this Baptist meeting. 
After they left the meeting they passed up Lick Creek, and when 
on the mountain side got into a quarrel and fight, and Harvey 
shot and killed Thrasher. Thrasher fell over against a large rock 
which remains by the roadside to this day, and the blood from 
the wounds ran out over onto this rock and remains there to this 
day to be seen. The killing occurred not far from the residence 
of Henry Gore, who married Adaline Keatley. After his death 
she married William A. French. Thrasher married Henry Gore's 
daughter, and after his death she sued her uncle, James Keatley, 
for damages for selling Thrasher the liquor. Keatley had secured 
his license from the county court of Monroe County just before 
the formation of Summers County. Adaline Gore was a sister of 
James Keatley. Keatley hunted up Thrasher's widow, secured a 
settlement or some kind of a statement from her by which the - 
suit was dismissed, and nothing was ever recovered ; and from 
.that day to this Adaline Gore (now French) never again spoke 
to her brother. Harvey was tried in the Summers Circuit Court, 
convicted and sentenced to the penitentiary for two years. He 
served his term, and returned to this region of the State, and is 
now living somewhere in the mining district, and was an active 
agitator of the strike of 1902. No liquor license has ever been 
granted at that place but once since the formation of the county, 
which was immediately on its formation for one year to said Keat- 
ley. The old grog shop is a relic of the past. 



540 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



MANDERVILLE. 

This is a family living near Indian Mills, at Manderville Post- 
office. The only settler of that name in the county was Joseph 
Manderville, who removed to the county from the Clear Fork, 
in Wyoming County, settling in the upper Forest Hill country. 
He was a soldier of the war of 1812, and his widow, Mrs. Cleo 
Manderville, received a pension for many years from the National 
Government, until her death. She died at a very advanced age in 
1906. There were two sons, John W., who is now postmaster at 
Manderville, and engaged in farming, and Joseph, who died several 
years ago. He was at one time a justice of the peace. 

This family is directly descended from the celebrated Lord 
Chief Justice of England. He was the Chief Justice in England, 
and is frequently quoted as an authority in the law books ; but was 
not of the cleanest reputation. He was, however, a great lawyer. 
A large patent of 10,000 acres of land was granted by the Govern- 
ment to an ancestor of John Manderville, situated on Clear Creek 
Fork and the waters of the Guyandotte River, which descended 
to the Manderville ancestry, and which is now very valuable ; but 
until recent years to own it was to be land -poor, as it brought 
no income, was far from' transportation and market, but was cov- 
ered with immense forests of the most valuable timber and is now 
underlaid with the now famous Pocahontas coal, and is worth 
hundreds of thousands of dollars. The Mandervilles were not 
situated to hold it intact and pay taxes, and parted with parcel 
at a time until it had all been disposed of, while its great value 
was appreciated and it had no market for its real value. John W. 
is the only man of the name in the county. He has a number of 
relations among the Blankenships and others in Wyoming County. 

GEROW. 

Henry S. Gerow was a native of New York State, having mar- 
ried Miss Sarah A. A. Owen, also of that State. He emigrated 
to Hinton in the year 1880, where he made his home until his 
death, on the 1st day of October. 1885. He was born in 
September, 1835. He is the only Quaker, so far as we 
have information, ever residing in the county, and was a most 
excellent and Christian gentleman. His wife was a relative of 
the Newkirks, and inherited one of the old land surveys in Pipe- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 541 

stem District — 2,500 acres — jointly with her relatives, John R. 
and William H. Newkirk, who were sons of Steven Newkirk. 
Mrs. Gerow and her husband came to this country for the purpose 
of securing the title and possession to her inheritance, which in- 
volved one of the longest and largest suits in equity ever prose- 
cuted in the courts of this county. There were a great number 
of defendants, and a full account of this litigation is given else- 
where. Mrs. Gerow recovered about 800 acres of this old survey, 
which is situated on the waters of Tom's Run, on New River, 
and which property she still retains. She and her husband have 
made their residence and were among the most enterprising citi- 
zens who helped to found the Mountain City. An instance of 
their patriotism is cited at the time the railroad company was 
threatening to remove its division, round house and offices from 
this city for want of room for yard purposes, and it became neces- 
sary for the citizens to make some provision in order to retain the 
railway enterprise. Mrs. Gerow contributed one hundred dollars 
for that purpose. She is a lady of education, refinement and fine 
business ability, and is one of the considerable property-owners 
in the city at this date. The Owens and Gerows were of Scotch 
and English descent. 

Mrs. Cerow's great-grandfather was Ebenezer Owen, of New 
York State, and he purchased the old patent in Pipestem in 1800. 
About 1795 he visited this region of country and made a survey 
of his property, and while undertaking to ford New River at the 
War Ford, he was overthrown into the water and lost his instru- 
ments. He also purchased large estates in realty in Kanawha 
County. Her grandfather's name was Abram Owen. Her father's 
name was Ebenezer Owen. H. S. Gerow was born in Plattekill, 
N. Y. The only other member of Mrs. Gerow's family was her 
brother, John, who died in Butte, Montana, within the last few 
years, unmarried. Abram Owen, the grandfather of Mrs. Gerow, 
was a soldier in the Mexican War. 

On another page an account of the famous suit of Gerow vs. 
Newkirk and others is given. 

JOSEPH HINTON. 

Joseph Hinton was one of the three sons of Avis Hinton, hav- 
ing married a Miss Carper. He has been one of the most promi- 
nent citizens of the county. He was first a deputy under Evan 
Hinton as sheriff of Summers County, after which he engaged 



542 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



in the mercantile business in partnership with his brother, Silas, 
under the firm name of S. Hinton & Brother, which business was 
continued at the Upper Hinton Ferry for thirty-two years. He 
was one of the first commissioners of the county court, being the 
president of the court, along with John C. McNeer and B. F. Shu- 
mate, the first commissioners under the present system. He was 
again" elected to that position in 1900, most of the time being 
president of the court, and refusing to become a candidate for 
re-election in 1904. He was a Confederate soldier during the Civil 
War, being a member of Captain Thurmond's Company. He was 
one of the party who came from Alderson to Hinton in a large 
canoe used for the transportation of men and supplies on the 
Greenbrier River during the war. While making one of these 
excursions down the river the party was shot at by bushwhackers 
in the mountain. The fire was returned, but no one shot, the 
party in the canoe lying down to prevent being killed or wounded. 

Mr. Hinton is one of the largest property-owners in the county, 
being one of the beneficiaries under the will of his mother, the late 
Avis Hinton. He is now sixty years of age, being only nineteen 
years of age when he joined the Confederate Army. He has trav- 
eled quite extensively, having visited the Holy Land and other 
points of interest in Asia and Europe. He is identified with nu- 
merous business enterprises, being a director in the First National 
Bank of Hinton, and identified with other large business enter- 
prises. His father, John Hinton — he being a half-brother of the 
late Evan Hinton — had for many years before the war endeavored 
to secure a new county, with the court house to be located at the 
mouth of Greenbrier River. John Hinton died in 1858. Wm. Hin- 
ton, Jr., his brother, was a brave Confederate soldier. They are 
Missionary Baptists and Democrats. 

ELLISON. 

Ellison is one of the oldest family names in the county. Elli- 
son Postofhce, in Jumping Branch District, established several 
years ago, was named in honor of this family. Jonathan F. Elli- 
son then lived at that place, and was the first postmaster. He was 
a Republican, and at one time the nominee of that party for as- 
sessor. His descendants live in the community to this day. 

James Ellison was the father of Matthew Ellison, the veteran 
preacher and pioneer Baptist minister, a man of great natural 
ability and an authority on immersion baptism, having written 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 543 



one or two books on the subject. He died at a very advanced age, 
at Alderson. His father, James, was captured by the Indians on 
Crump's Bottom, after being shot in the shoulder. They chewed 
dogwood bark and spit in the wound, and carried him on the trail 
to Ellison's Ridge, in Jumping Branch District. He lagged be- 
hind when darkness overtook them, when he ran over a bank and 
hid under a cliff, being pursued and passed in his hiding place, 
they passing on below. His hands being tied with thongs of raw- 
hide, he rubbed them against the stones until they were freed, 
and the thongs cut loose by the rubbing, and thus he made his 
escape, and made his way back to the settlement. 

This capture was on the last raid of the Indians on the trails 
by the Lower Bluestone and west of New River, in this region of 
the county. 

There is a field on Crump's Bottom now owned by Mr. G. W. 
Harmon, known as "Fort Field," because it was in this field there 
was in aboriginal times a fort constructed and maintained for the 
protection of the first settlers. It was in this rude fort that James 
Ellison was captured. The Farleys came early into that section, 
and were Indian fighters to the extent of breaking up further 
raids through that section. It is below this bottom on New River 
that the fine bottoms of Matthew Calloway Barker are located, 
originally granted to GalifT, and first settled by a man by the name 
of Collins. It is on this same bottom, some three years ago, that 
an ancient burial ground was discovered by an overflow of the 
banks of New River. The bones of a great number of human 
beings were found, and many curious and ancient implements and 
weapons uncovered, over which the footsteps of civilized man 
had trodden for generations. 

Lewis A. Ellison, a brave ex-Confederate soldier, resides on 
his farm near Forest Hill. He is one of the most substantial men 
of the county, and is now treasurer of the Mike Foster Monument 
Association, an organization having for its object the erection of 
a soldier monument to the brave Mike Foster, who died from the 
many wounds received in battle, soon after the war, and was 
buried at Forest Hill. 

William Ellison, another thrifty farmer, resides at Pipestem, 
and is engaged in the mercantile business at the old B. P. Shu- 
mate stand. There are a number of other descendants of James 
Ellison still living in the county, including Frank and D. Ellison, 
sons of Jonathan F. ; but we are unable to secure a detailed his- 
tory of the Ellison family. 



544 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Samuel J. Akers, the land surveyor and notary, married a 
daughter of J. F. Ellison. 

Wm. Henderson Ellison now lives in Hinton. He . is a son 
of Wm. T. Ellison. His grandfather's name was Asa. His great- 
grandfather's name was Tuggle Ellison, from Franklin County, 
Virginia. There were five brothers who came from beyond the 
sea togther. Wm. Ellison settled in Florida ; Larkin Ellison, a 
brother of Asa, settled in Oregon ; James Ellison lived in Pipe- 
stem, and died in 1888. 

HEDRICK. 

This is a Talcott District family, the ancestors being of Eng- 
lish descent, and of the same stock as the Greenbrier Hedricks. 

Moses Hedrick, the founder of the Hedrick generation in the 
county, first settled on Hungart's Creek, then Monroe County; 
thence removed to the Pisgah Church neighborhood, Avhere he 
died on the 4th of April, 1894, aged eighty-seven years. At one 
time he owned large landed interests in the Flungart's Creek re- 
gion. His brother, George, married a daughter of John Nolan, 
who left one child living, the wife of W. D. Sherwood. Moses 
Hedrick married Miss Jennie Allen, who died November 27, 1893, 
aged eighty-four. The four sons of Moses Hedrick now living in 
Summers County are George W\, William C. and John, who reside 
in Talcott District, near Barger Springs. William C. Hedrick, com- 
monly known as "Squire," the elder brother, is distinguished as 
being the father of eight boys, all of voting age, and all voting 
the Democratic ticket. He has always wielded a large and potent 
influence in the county. He was elected a justice of the peace, 
which office he held for four years. He was appointed for a second 
term in 1905, but resigned. He was also deputy sheriff of the 
county from 1896 to 1900, under James H. George, high sheriff 
of the county. He is a man of character, and resides with his wife, 
a daughter of Nathaniel Allen, on his farm near Barger Springs. 
Geo. W. Hedrick was elected in 1892 a commissioner of the county 
court, and held the office for the full term of six years. In 1904 
he ran with L. M. Neely, Jr., for assessor of Summers County, 
which position, as assistant to Mr. Neely, he has faithfully filled 
for three years, and he is now a candidate for election to the of- 
fice of assessor of the internal revenue in the county, with Mr. 
Neely as his assistant. Matthew C. Hedrick, another brother and 
son of Moses, resides in Jumping Branch District, on Little Blue- 




WM. C. HEDRICK, 
Oldest Living- Representative of the Hedrick Family. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 545 



stone, and was elected to the office of justice of the peace in that 
district, which position he held for four years, and was also ap- 
pointed by the county court to the same position. His son, M. C. 
Hedrick, was deputy sheriff for four years under H. Ewart, high 
sheriff. The Hedricks are all Democrats in their political affilia- 
tions, and have held important positions in the councils of the 
county and district committees. Squire W. C. Hedrick was a 
brave soldier throughout the Civil War for four years. George W. 
Hedrick, ex-sheriff of Raleigh County, is a member of the same 
branch of the family, and is one of the substantial citizens of that 
county, having been also deputy and held other important posi- 
tions. In 1906 he was the Democratic candidate for the House 
of Delegates from that county. "Dock" Hedrick, son of Squire 
William C, is now the courteous hackman of the Greenbrier 
Springs Company, along with his brother Henry. John B. is 
another son of Moses, who resides at Talcott, and has two sons, 
Matthew and Mike, who are employed by the C. & O. Railway 
Co. 

The Hedrick family is one of the pioneer and substantial fami- 
lies of the county, that go to make up her good citizenship. N. 
B. Hedrick, another son of Squire William C, was elected justice 
of the peace in 1906, having held one term prior under appoint- 
ment. The Hedricks are loyal party men, but are not seekers 
after political office. When elected, it is at the demand of their 
neighbors. 

HINES. 

Charles R. Hines, the founder of the family name in this 
county, was a native of Monroe County, having removed from 
that county in 1806. He married Sarah R. Beard, a daughter of 
Jesse Beard, one of the Pocahontas stock of that name, who owned 
the Beard plantation, which was a large and valuable tract of 
land on which the famous Pence's Spring is located. Jesse Beard 
was a native of Milborough, Pocahontas County, who died about 
the close of the Civil War, leaving two sons, Thomas Beard and 
Wallace Beard, and three daughters — Madora, who married George 
Keller and now resides at Lowell; Sarah R. married Charles R. 
Hines, and the other sister married Caleb Johnson, of Illinois. 
The Beard plantation was divided, and the wife of Charles R. 
Hines became the owner of 116 acres, which has recently been 



546 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

sold to A. E. Humphries, of Charleston, for $10,000. Charles R. 
Hines was married twice, his first wife being a Conner, of Muddy 
Creek, a daughter of John Conner, one of the first merchants who 
ever sold goods on the Lick Creek. By this wife there were born 
five children, two girls and three boys — James, Lorenzo and John, 
and Mary and Mattie — all of whom are now dead. By the second 
wife there were six children, all of whom died in infancy except 
Charles L. B., who is now engaged as a pharmacist in Kansas 
City, Mo., and J. Lee, who lives at Pence's Springs. He married 
Miss Winn, of Albemarle County, Va. C. L. B. is unmarried. 

Charles R. Hines, the ancestor, was a brick mason by trade, 
and a very intelligent man. He was at one time engaged in the 
mercantile business at Palestine, in Greenbrier County, but at the 
formation of Summers County was a resident thereof, and was 
active in its formation. He was a justice of the peace and a mem- 
ber of the county court from the formation of the county until 
his death. His partner in the mercantile business was E. M. 
Brown, a veteran merchant of Union. He was one of the mem- 
bers of the county court who settled the court house location 
question. Thomas Beard emigrated to the West, and was thrown 
from a wagon loaded with hay, and killed. He never married. 



COCHRAN. 

Charles Cochran, one of the oldest citizens of this county, 
resides in Jumping Branch District. He emigrated to this county 
from Franklin County, Virginia, in 1872. His wife's name was 
Ruth Radford. He is now eighty-two years old, hale and healthy. 
He was a Confederate soldier throughout the Civil War. He at 
this time has two sons living — Robert, who married Miss Pack, 
a daughter of Preston Pack, and A. J., who married a Miss Shively. 
Robert is a prosperous farmer in Jumping Branch District. A. J. 
has been a justice of the peace eight years. He also held the 
office of Constable for the Jumping Branch District for several 
years, and has been a member of the Democratic County Execu- 
tive Committee, and aggressive in the causes of his party. One 
son, Michael, died in 1884. He married a Miss Vest, daughter 
of Anderson Vest. In 1894 he was accidentally cut by a scythe, 
while mowing his meadow, from which wounds he died. He had 
also held a position as constable for a number of years. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 547 



DEEDS. 

Two of the oldest citizens now residing in Summers County 
are two brothers, John Deeds and C. B. Deeds, the former living 
near Jumping Branch and the latter at Jumping Branch, and is 
a member of the firm of Meador & Deeds, who have been en- 
gaged in the mercantile business at that place for many years, and 
who are probably the oldest merchants now operating in Summers 
County. The other member of the firm is Green F. Meador, a 
son-in-law of C. B. Deeds. These brothers removed to Summers 
County while they were youths, before the war. John is now 
ninety-two years old. They were born in Allegheny County, Vir- 
ginia, and were of Dutch descent. C. B. Deeds is one of the 
thriftiest business men in the county. Both brothers are honest, 
reliable citizens. The former established and operated a tanyard 
at Jumping Branch for a number of years. 



EWART. 

The only family of this name ever residing in Summers County 
was founded by Colonel John S. Ewart. His ancestors were Eng- 
lish. He was born August 22, 1813, in Groveland Township, Liv- 
ingston County, New York, and educated at Temple Hill Acad- 
emy, in his native county. He was a member of the New York 
State Guards, and as such led a company against the marauding 
Indians on the Canadian frontiers, and held a commission under 
the Government as colonel, by which title he was always famil- 
iarly known thereafter. The title was well earned from active 
service, as well as intelligent and brave in action as a soldier 
in the army. In 1844 he removed to Southwestern Virginia, 
where he was engaged for a number of years in teaching school, 
civil engineering and bridge building. He possessed rare mathe- 
matical ability, and was noted for the intelligent plans and well 
executed work on several of the best bridges constructed in Vir- 
ginia. He and his brother, James Ewart, were contractors in the 
construction of the famous James River Canal. In May, 1852, 
he married Miss Sarah Honaker, of Pulaski County, Virginia. 
In 1856 he removed with his family to Raleigh County, W. Va., 
then Virginia. This was then a sparsely settled and wild frontier 
section. In those early days his intelligent judgment and fore- 
sight saw the great development which was bound to come to 



548 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



that region, as well as its great wealth in timber and coal ; but 
in those days there were no railroads or means of transportation 
within a hundred miles, with no prospects of its being developed 
within a century. He acquired, however, a large boundary of 
these coal lands, which he held until the developments were in 
sight, a number of years before his death. In the great conflict 
between the States, which began in 1861, he remained neutral, 
taking no active part on either side, though his sympathy was 
naturally with the South. In 1862 his farm in Raleigh County 
was devastated by local plunderers. His dwelling and barn were 
burned. His stock was driven off, slaughtered and sold, and the 
accumulations of many years were swept away in a night. Noth- 
ing was left but a barren waste of farm land. He then moved 
with his wife and two children to a one-room cabin, the best then 
obtainable, on what was then known as the "Cooper place," where 
he resided until 1868, when he took his family to New York, 
where he resided until 1872, when they then removed to Shady 
. Springs, in Raleigh County, residing there until 1878, when they 
removed to Athens, then Concord, in Mercer County, for the pur- 
pose of securing the benefit of the Concord Normal School for 
his children then growing up. In the fall of 1880 he became a 
resident of Hinton, West Virginia, purchasing the Dr. Gooch 
homestead on the island of Avis, where he continued to reside 
until his death, February 8, 1888. His remains now rest on the 
old plantation in Raleigh County. His wife and four children, 
who survive him, still reside in Hinton. His family, at the date 
of his death, consisted of one son, Harvey Ewart, and three daugh- 
ters, Mary J., the eldest of the family, having married Captain 
C. A. Alvis, one of the leading passenger conductors engaged in 
the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad Company. Miss 
Stella is engaged as clerk in the Hinton postoffice, which posi- 
tion she has held for more than twelve years, having been first 
appointed by George W. Warren during the second Cleveland ad- 
ministration, and as evidence of her efficiency, her retention 
through Republican as well as Democratic administrations is the 
strongest. Miss Ella also resides with her mother, and Harvey 
Ewart, the only son, is one of the leading and most enterprising 
citizens of this section of West Virginia. Colonel Ewart invested 
largely in mineral and timber land in Raleigh, but parted with 
his holdings before the great appreciation in these lands came. 
He foresaw the wonderful wealth of that region, but the war, no 
doubt, was one of the chief causes in the delayed development, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 549 



and prevented the consummation of his hopes and plans. He was 
a man of strong convictions, great courage and extreme energy. 
These natural endowments brought him in conflict with men, 
and unavoidably resulted in making him strong enemies and 
abiding and fearless friends. 

It was Colonel Ewart who first planned, and by his enterprise 
secured, the construction of the first bridge over the branch of 
the river forming the island in Avis. It was a wooden structure, 
constructed on plans made by him, and under whose observation 
and management it was built without money and without price 
to the town or the people. 

Each of the children of Colonel Ewart graduated at the Con- 
cord Normal School. He was a man of strong convictions, loyal 
to his friends, and his enemies knew where to find him. 

Harvey Ewart, the only son of Colonel John S, Ewart, re- 
sides on the flat in Avis, in Summers County. He was born on 
the 3d day of March, 1861. He was educated by private tutors, 
largely by his father, finally taking a course and graduating at 
the head of his class at the Concord Normal School, in the fa- 
mous class of 1879, which included J. W. Hinkle, of Greenbrier 
County; Clark Ellis, of the same county; M. J. Garst, of Salem, 
Va.; Harvey Lewis, of Greenbrier County; Miss Mary J. Ewart 
and James H. Miller. After graduating he taught in the public 
schools of Summers County for some time, and was engaged with 
A. B. Perkins in the mercantile business. In 1892 he was nomi- 
nated by the Democratic party for justice of the peace in Green- 
brier District, without being a candidate. In 1896 he was re- 
elected, holding that position for eight years. In 1890 he was 
nominated for sheriff of Summers County over C. H. Lilly, and 
elected over L. P. Graham, holding the office for four years. He 
was appointed a commissioner in chancery by Judge A. N. Camp- 
bell, which position he held throughout Judge Campbell's term 
of eight years. He was removed in 1897 by Judge McWhorter 
for political reasons, and again appointed in 1905. by the present 
judge, Miller. In all official positions he is fair, honest, intelli- 
gent and entirely impartial, and has been one of the most effi- 
cient and fearless officers ever holding office in Summers County. 
He is one of the most enterprising citizens of the county, and 
has been engaged and interested in more of the enterprises for 
the advancement and development of this section than any other 
citizen residing therein. His intelligent, honest business fore- 
sight attracts him to all persons entering a new business enter- 



550 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



prise. His judgment in business, as well as other matters, is un- 
excelled. His loyalty and honor are unimpeachable. He is an 
inveterate worker and energetic to the utmost, and is a master 
in every matter that he undertakes. He is now engaged in the 
coal-producing industry, in lumber enterprises, in the wholesale 
and retail industry, and is one of the large stockholders and chief 
promoters in the Hinton Water & Light plant. Much is due to 
him for the great hotel now being constructed in the city of Hin- 
ton. Practically all of his investments are with home industries 
and for the development of home enterprises. He has for a num- 
ber of years been engaged in insurance, both life and fire. He 
was one of the chief promoters in the organization of the National 
Bank of Summers, the strongest bank in this section of the State. 

In 1901 he was united in marriage with Miss Emily Burke, a 
daughter of the famous editor and newspaper man, Richard Burk. 
They have two children — James H. M. Ewart, a lad of four years, 
and one daughter, Hildegard, one year of age. 

WITHROW. 

i 

The ancient family of Withrow is connected with the first 
settlement of the Green Sulphur and Lick Creek regions. Rob- 
ert Withrow, the founder of the family, was born near Yorktown, 
in Virginia, and was a boy at the time of the fight of Yorktown 
and the surrender of Cornwallis, which terminated the Revolu- 
tionary War of '76. He related his recollections of that famous 
battle, hearing the cannons booming and seeing the marching of 
the French and English and American soldiers. His father's 
name was William Withrow, an emigrant from Scotland, and was 
of Scotch-Irish-Welsh descent. The family has more or less been 
always noted for the contrariness of the various members, which 
is attributed to this mixture of ancient blood. Robert Withrow's 
wife was an Alderson, from the Greenbrier River settlements, and 
her name was Jean. The sons of Robert Withrow were : Abel, 
who went West, finally settled in Iowa, raised a large family and 
died. His wife was a Newsom. The second son, David, married 
a Gwinn, of the ancient Lowell Gwinns, who settled in the West, 
and his family was lost sight of. The third son, Robin, married 
a Foster, and settled and died in Ohio State. The fourth son, 
Alderson, married a Skaggs, settled in Fayette County, raised a 
family and died. His wife was a daughter of Dr. Jimmy Skaggs. 
The fifth son was Samuel Harrison, born in 1811, and first set- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 551 



tied where Elton Postoffice is. He at one time owned the mill 
at that place, and died at the age of seventy-seven, on the head 
of Lick Creek, where he built one of the first and ancient mills 
in that region, known as "Withrow's Mill," first an undershot 
and later an overshot wheel. The old building is one of the pic- 
turesque memories of that section. He was engaged ten years 
in building it, that being the second one near the same site. His 
first wife was Sarah Kincaid, daughter of Matthew Kincaid, 
who died in Missouri. Samuel H. emigrated to Missouri, where 
he lived six years, and then returned to Lick Creek, where he lived 
until his death. His second wife was Amanda A. Smith, of Fay- 
ette County, a daughter of Elijah Smith. 

He was noted for his stubbornness and contrariness, and was 
a man of strong personality. He was a Union man during the 
war and a Republican after the war, largely in opposition to all 
of his neighbors and all of his sons. He was a man of ingenuity 
and a good carpenter and millwright, all of which he learned with- 
out teaching. 

The sixth son was Allen, who also married a daughter of 
Matthew Kincaid, settled in Missouri and died there. The daugh- 
ters of Robert Withrow were: Hannah, who married a Harrah; 
Bettie, who married a Smith, the mother of Jackson Smith, and 
the man who, with M. Hutchinson, built the first log storehouse 
at Elton and was the ancient merchant of that place, along with 
his partner, M. Hutchinson. The third daughter, Virginia, mar- 
ried a McClung. The. sons and daughters of Samuel H. Withrow 
by his first marriage were : Columbus Wran, John Knox, Matthew 
Alexander, and two daughters, Sarah, who married Joseph Green 
Burdette. The children by his second marriage were: Milliard 
Fillmore, who lives on the old plantation ; Robert Smith, who 
married Miss Mollie Graham, a daughter of Blacksmith James 
Graham, and Allen, who removed to Ohio in his youth. The 
daughters were Miss Sallie Ann, who married Enos Flint, of 
Griffith's Creek, Ellen and Kate. 

Among the family of Withrows, on Lick Creek, was Curtis, 
married and having a family. Charles W., now of Beckley, and 
the late A. J., of New Richmond, were his sons. He volunteered 
in the Southern Army, from which he never returned, and from 
the day he left his family to fight for his State he was never heard 
from. His widow and children, after the close of the war, waited 
and watched for his return as the other soldiers came in, but he 
never came, the general understanding being that he was killed 
in battle and his identity lost forever. 



552 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



JONES. 

Brice Miller was a native of Monroe County and of English 
descent. T. J. Jones was a noted justice of the peace in recon- 
struction days, always signing his name "T. J. Jones, Justice 
J. P." He was from Monroe County and a descendant of one of 
the first settlers of the Wolf Creek region, and one of his sisters, 
Sarah, married George W. Dean, one of the oldest residents of 
the county, s now being eighty years of age. Their sons are Dr. 
George W. Dean, a dentist; Samuel W. Dean, an insurance broker, 
and Ballard W. Dean, a lumberman. George W. Dean lived for 
a number of years on the Matthew Dunbar place on the Hump 
Mountain adjoining the Kalor lands, then removed to the Simp- 
son Zickafoose place on the mountain near Elton, adjoining the 
William Miller farm, now owned by Major G. W. Goddard's heirs. 
Thos. J. Jones married a daughter of Brice Miller, a native of Mon- 
roe County, who at an early day settled at the foot of Keeney's 
Knobs on the Lick Creek side. His sons were A. J. and Wm. An- 
derson. These Millers, Jones and Dequasies were all allied by 
marriage. 

Marion Mize married Christina, a daughter of William An- 
derson Miller, and they now live on the Dunn place on New River 
near Pack's Ferry. 

Charles Mize married another daughter, and they live on Lick 
Creek on the waters of Van Bibber (Bensliver) branch of Lick 
Creek. He is a very quiet, hard-working, thrifty man. The Mizes 
were from Patrick County, Virginia. 

William DeQuasie Miller, the only son of W. A., lives in 
Monroe County. He was many years ago going down Lick Creek 
one day, and on the road between the W. E. Miller and A. A. 
Miller farm found a large pocketbook with a considerable sum of 
money in it. He concealed it under a culvert, and later went 
back and appropriated it and the funds to his own use. Later it 
was discovered, and he was arrested, indicted and sentenced to 
serve two years in the penitentiary, but a question as to his sanity 
arose. He was proved to be insane, and escaped incarceration. He 
as a youth was known far and wide as a notorious story-teller. 
He would fabricate a yarn out of anything, and tell "white lies" 
for his amusement. Later in life he settled down and became a 
peaceable, quiet and law-abiding citizen. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



553 



CRAWFORD. 

Thomas Crawford was a native of Monroe County, born near 
Lynnside, who moved from that county many years ago and 
settled near Greenbrier River in the Dog Trot community. He 
was a man of worth and a good citizen. He left the following 
children, now residents and citizens of Forest Hill District: Henry 
Crawford, the oldest son, is a merchant at Forest Hill. He mar- 
ried Elizabeth McNeer, a daughter of Richard McNeer. A. T. 
Crawford, another son, married Miss Boude, a daughter of Sam- 
uel K. Boude, and sister of Walter H. Boude, the clerk of the 
circuit court. J. Walter, another son, married a daughter of Wil- 
liam Redmond, of near Indian Mills. Another son, John W., has 
never married. He also left one daughter, who married Charles 
Lively, of Monroe County. J. Walter Crawford is a prominent 
minister in the Missionary Baptist Church. 

There was another family of Crawfords in that district, of whom 
Henry Crawford, a prominent farmer and excellent citizen, resides 
near Ballangee Post Office. He married a Leftwich, sister to 
Jabez and George W. Leftwich and daughter of David Leftwich, 
the settler. His father settled on Bradshaw's Run. His son, Lacy 
Crawford, is engaged in the lumber business at Mayberry, West 
Virginia. Another son, Robert, married Florence Hedrick, a 
daughter of Squire Wm. C. Hedrick, and his daughters, Misses 
Nina and Bessie, are teachers in the county. There are no better 
citizens than these Crawfords of Forest Hill. 



LOWE. 

Matthew Lowe was one of the first settlers in Talcott District. 
He was born at Pence Springs and raised a large family on the 
Hungart's Creek farm, about a mile from the mouth of that 
creek, now owned by John Willy. He was a son of S. Lowe. 
His wife was a daughter of the old settler Kincaid. He was born 
in 1793, and was drafted as a soldier in the war of 1812, but it 
was terminated before he saw actual service. He raised a family 
of eighteen children — Clark, who . married Sarah Campbell, a 
daughter of William Campbell ; Charley, who married Emmeline 
Meadows, a daughter of Joshua Meadows ; Sam, who married 
Catherine Meadows, a daughter of Joshua Meadows ; Granville 
(J. G.), who married a Miss Vines, daughter of Silas Vines; M., 



554 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

who married a daughter of William Campbell; John, who married 
Sallie Allen, a daughter of Nathaniel Allen and sister of Archie 
Allen; Clementine, who married Archie Mann, son of John Mann; 
Adaline, who married William Arnett, son of Henry Arnett; Liz- 
zie, who married James Ramsey, son of David Ramsey ; Ann, who 
married Anderson Wheeler, son of Robert Wheeler; Rebecca, who 
married Jordan Grimmett, son of Joseph Grimmett ; Agnes, who 
married Peter Wyant, a son of Peter Wyant. There are a number 
of the descendants of Matthew Lowe still living throughout that 
part of Jumping Branch and other parts of the county. C. E. Lowe 
and Clifford Lowe, of Hinton, the furniture dealers, and Webster 
Lowe are sons of Granville Lowe, who lived near the "Shoemaker 
Bill" Lilly place in Jumping Branch District. John Lowe, who 
died in 1906, lived at the same place. He was afflicted and unable 
to walk for twenty-seven years prior to his death. Matthew 
Lowe was one of the guards at the hanging of Beck Coulter at 
Union Jail, the first and only woman ever legally executed from 
the territory of Summers County. 

The only woman ever executed from this section of the country 
and from the territory of Summers County was a negro slave, 
Beck Coulter, who was owned by William Coulter. She was a 
nurse for the son of her master, and to get rid of the labor and 
annoyance attendant upon nursing the child, killed him. She 
was arrested and lodged in jail at Union, being in that part of 
Summers territory taken from Monroe, tried for murder, found 
guilty, and hung by the neck until dead in the jail yard at Union. 
That was more than fifty years ago. Matthew Lowe, of Hungart's 
Creek, was one of the guards at the jail at this execution. Another 
negro executed at Union jail was Buck Johnson, who killed Hun- 
ter, the timekeeper at the Big Bend Tunnel during its construc- 
tion. Hunter was killed at the exact location where Hilldale 
Station is now situated, at the west portal of the Big Bend Tunnel, 
and Johnson was tried and convicted at Union, and executed im- 
mediately prior to the formation of Summers County. He was a 
negro laborer working on- the construction of the Big Bend Tunnel. 
Hunter was the timekeeper for Wm. R. Johnson, the contractor 
who constructed the Big Bend Tunnel for the C. & O. Railway 
Co. He was supposed by Johnson to have in his possession the 
money to meet Johnson's pay-roll, and was killed in cold blood 
for gain, and the law was righteously vindicated by the conviction 
and execution of the black murderer. 



* 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 555 



THE STORY OF PAULEY. 

It was on September 23, 1779, that Margaret Pauley and her 
husband, John, together with James Pauley, wife and child, Robert 
Wallace and wife and Brice Miller set out from the Greenbrier 
section to go to Kentucky. They crossed New River at the horse 
ford at the mouth of Rich Creek, then down New River and up 
East River, which was the shortest route to the Cumberland Gap. 
Each of the men had his rifle ; the women on the horses, on which 
was packed what household plunder they could carry was in front, 
the men in the rear driving the cattle. About noon of the day 
referred to, and when the party had reached a point on East River 
about one mile below the mouth of Five Mile Fork thereof, sup- 
posed to have been near the upper end of the old farm of Captain 
William Smith, they were attacked by five Indians and one white 
man by the name of Morgan, who was in company with the In- 
dians. The first intimation that the party had of the presence of 
the savages was the report of a -gun. The women, Mrs. John and 
James Pauley, were knocked down from their horses by the Indians 
with their clubs. Wallace and the two children were killed and 
scalped, and John Pauley, though fatally wounded, escaped, and 
succeeded in reaching Wood's Fort on Rich Creek, where he died 
in a short time. The Indians took Mrs. John and James Pauley 
prisoners, and on leaving the scene of their atrocities, went up 
East River to the mouth of Five Mile Fork, and thence up the 
same to the head across- the Bluestone, and on to the Ohio and to 
the Indian towns of the Miami. There were two women and the 
little boy of Mary Pauley, born shortly after she reached the 
Indian towns, who remained prisoners for about two years. Finally 
Mrs. Pauley escaped, and Margaret and her child shortly after this 
were ransomed. 

Mrs. Pauley's maiden name was Handley. After the return of 
Margaret Pauley she married a Mr. Erskine, by whom she had a 
daughter who married Hugh Caperton, who became a distinguished 
man, and who was the father of the late U. S. Senator Allen T. 
Caperton, of Monroe County. Adam Caperton, the father of Hugh, 
was killed in a battle with the Indians at the Little Mountain, or 
Estell's Defeat, near where Mt. Sterling, Kentucky, is now situated. 
Captain Estell and six of his men were killed and seventeen of the 
Indians were killed. This battle was fought on the 22d day of 
March, 1782. Senator Allen T. Caperton wrote out a full history 



556 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of the attack, capture and escape of his grandmother, Margaret 
Pauley from her dictation when she' was a very aged lady. His 
account is published in full, as taken by Senator Caperton, in Mr. 
Virgil A. Lewis' "History of West Virginia. See also "Johnston's 
History of the Middle New River Settlements." 

FOX. 

David and Samuel Fox, two brothers, emigrated in the early 
days from Franklin County, Virginia, and settled at Brooks' Falls 
on New River, four miles west of Hinton. They were sons of 
William Fox, who bought land from Brooks, the first settler, who 
had secured a grant from the Commonwealth of Virginia. David 
and Samuel had two other brothers, William and Joseph, who 
settled on the War Ridge in Fayette County. Samuel died during 
the Civil War, a prisoner at Johnson's Island, one of the Union 
prisons. David died a few years ago, leaving the following chil- 
dren, who reside in the county: J. A. Fox, Charles R. Fox, David 
M. Fox and Samuel H. Fox, all prosperous and living at Brooks 
and its neighborhood. Joseph R., who moved to Parkersburg. 
Elizabeth married James H. Martin, a Confederate soldier of Lick 
Creek; Susan married Henry Bennett, and Mary married John 
Willis. William, George Fox and Frank, Eldridge and John are 
also sons of David, and moved from this section several years ago. 
The Foxes are a thrifty, law-abiding people, good citizens and of 
the class that go to make a good community. 

WILLIAM H. SAWYERS. 

Wm. H. Sawyers was born October 25, 1870, on a farm near 
Meadow Bluff, in Greenbrier County, and, like many of the suc- 
cessful men of this country, began his career as a farmer and 
teacher in the public schools, as a stepping-stone to a higher career. 
Through his own efforts he took a complete course at the State 
Normal School at Concord, graduating and taking the orator's 
medal in the class of 18 — ; later, he took the law course at the 
West Virginia University, graduating and taking the degree of 
L. L. B. in the class of 1894. In 1895 he acquired one-third interest 
in the "Independent Herald," a newspaper, with Howard - Tem- 
pleton and his son, Maurice Templeton. Later, he disposed of his 
interest in that enterprise, and he was appointed to a position in 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 557 



the Interior Department of the general government at Washing- 
ton, D. C, at which city, at the Columbia University, he took the 
post-graduate course in international law and diplomacy. Later, he 
acquired the entire ownership of the "Independent Herald," a 
newspaper at Hinton, which he has successfully conducted to the 
present date, being the editor, owner and publisher. 

Mr. Sawyers is an accomplished writer and close student, with 
a successful future before him. In politics he is a Democrat, and 
has occupied positions of trust in the councils of that party, having 
been Chairman of the Democratic County Committee, conducting 
the campaign .of 1898 successfully. In 1904 he was elected a mem- 
ber of the Democratic State Executive Committee for the Seventh 
Senatorial District, succeeding James H. Miller on his nomination 
for the judgeship. He practices his profession incidentally with his 
newspaper work. Recently he has been selected as secretary and 
editor of the "Fayette Sun," a Democratic newspaper founded on 
the first day of February, 1906. He has been twice elected presi- 
dent of the Board of Education of Greenbrier District, and favor- 
ably mentioned for other places of trust and honor. He married 
Miss Josephine McCreery in 1907, a daughter of James T. McCreery. 
Since the retirement of Judge Daly he has been elected judge of 
the police court of Hinton for the succeeding term. 

FOSTER. 

There are a number of people now residing in the county by 
the name of Foster, and who seem not to have been of the original 
settlers. One of the first to settle in the county was James Ellison 
Foster, who came from Monroe County before the war and settled 
on Wolf Creek Mountain — a very intelligent man, ivho was promi- 
nent at the formation of the county. He was related to the old 
family of that name, descendants of whom live in Monroe County. 
Addison Foster, a brother of James E., located in the same section 
of the Wolf Creek country, in Forest Hill District, while James E. 
located in Greenbrier, Wolf Creek being the line between the two 
districts. 

James E. Foster, who owns a good farm on the same mountain, 
is now engaged in the butcher business in Hinton. Lee Foster 
and Peter M. are sons of James E. Foster. Judson Foster, now 
residing in Hinton, is a son of Addison, both of the older brothers 
living to be old men. James E. and his sons are Methodists and 



558 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Republicans, while Addison's were Baptists and Democrats. James 
H. Hobbs married Martha, daughter of James E. 

Peter M. Foster, son of James E>, is one of the active Demo- 
crats of Forest Hill, and is a member of the Board of Education 
of that district. He married a daughter of Thomas W. Townsley, 
and is a carpenter by trade, as well as a farmer. 

There is another family of Fosters residing in Green Sulphur 
District, of which A. A. Foster is the founder, settling at an early 
day on the Swell Mountain. His two sons, J. J. and A. J. Foster, 
are both prominent farmers in the community, Jacob J. Foster 
having held the office of justice for four years, and Andrew J. 
president of the Board of Education for four years, being Repub- 
licans in their political faith. They are among the old teachers 
of the county, are farmers, and are law-abiding and good citizens. 
Joseph Martin married their sister, Margaret; Simeon Berkeley, 
another sister, and Henry Clay Martin, another. 

HAYNES. 

The family of Haynes has never been a numerous one in the 
county, though of eminent respectability, prominence an intelli- 
gence. They are of German descent. "The Dutchman naturally 
takes to blue grass, limestone and fat cows," so the original Haynes 
settle in Monroe County, then Virginia. The original German was 
Hayne, and the only American modification is the addition of the 
letter S. The German botanist, Friederich Gottleib Hayne, 1763- 
1832, preserved to the present century the original orthography in 
his native country, as also the American poet, Paul H. Hayne, 
Isaac Hayne, a Revolutionary officer, and Robert Hayne, the Amer- 
ican statesman and orator, 1791-1840. 

The family of Haynes of which we treat are descendants from 
the Revolutionary officer, Isaac Hayne, who was famed for his 
patriotism in the days of 76. Isaac was the father of seven broth- 
ers, soldiers in the struggle for American independence. The pro- 
genitor of the Monroe branch was William Haynes, who emerged 
from the Revolution of 1776 with an S to his name. Of the seven 
brothers, Charles is without a history, except for the single item 
of his marriage, November 24, 1781, with Mary Dixon, of Green- 
brier. 

Benjamin belonged to General Morgan's "Legion" of riflemen, 
and is traditionally remembered as a rollicking, hardy, stout young 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



559 



man. Late one evening, when the "Legion" was about to bivouac 
for the night, a young bull came bellowing into camp. Getting 
down on all -fours, Ben began to menace and bellow, too. At an 
unguarded moment the animal made a furious lunge, and, catching 
a horn under the waistband of Ben's leather breeches, bore his 
terrified tormentor off in triumph some forty or fifty yards, to the 
great amusement of his "Legion" comrades, who had stopped to 
witness the performance. After the Revolution Ben lived and died 
on Jackson's River, about nine miles above Covington, Virginia. 

All traces of the family of these brothers have entirely disap- 
peared. 

Joseph also lived and died on Jackson's River. April 5, 1872, 
he was married to Barbara Riffe, of Greenbrier. The late Major 
Haynes, who lived near Oakland in Allegheny County, was a son 
of Colonel Charles Haynes, of the "Stonewall Brigade," who died 
a few years ago, and was a grandson of Joseph Haynes. 

Moses settled in Tennessee at an early day, but no special knowl- 
edge is had of him. ^ 

William, born December 18, 1863, settled in Monroe County 
(then Greenbrier) on a farm between Gap Mills and the Sweet 
Springs, His wife was Miss Catherine Shanklin, of Botetourt 
County, Virginia. About 1795 Mr. Haynes moved to another farm 
at the foot of Little Mountain near Gap Mills, where he resided 
until his death, May 1, 1819, and his wife died there also in June 
1812. In early life he was a merchant, but soon gave up that 
occupation. The pioneer Presbyterian divine, Dr. McElhenny, 
says: "The first family I visited in the field of my mission (Green- 
brier and Monroe) was that of Mr. Haynes in the Gap in Monroe 
County, and in his house I delivered my first sermon on the west 
of the Allegheny. By the aid of physical phenomena and certain 
topographical features, the locality in which Mr. Haynes lived is 
of considerable interest to the lover of natural curiosities. The 
point was named from the gap torn by Second Creek through Little 
Mountain by the bygone ages. This and the forcing of New River 
through Peter's Mountain at the Narrows, measure up in grandeur 
almost with Jefferson's description of the 'Passage of the Potomac 
through the Blue Ridge.' The marks of disruption and avulsion 
left where these mountains of Monroe were cloven from apex to 
base also furnish monuments of war between rivers and mountains, 
which must have shaken the earth to its center. Relics of the 
glacier and plutonic era prevail extensively throughout the New 



560 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

River and Greenbrier V alleys. Everywhere, turn whithersoever 
you will, there causes are to be seen 

" 'Flinging their shadows on high, 
Like dials which the wizard, time, 
Had used to count his ages by.' " 

William Haynes was a prominent citizen. He had one daugh- 
ter, Agnes D., who married, in the winter of 1819, Michael Erskine, 
of Monroe, afterwards removing to Gaudolope County, Texas, 
where she died, leaving five sons, John, Andrew, William, Michael 
and Alexander, and five daughters, Catherine, Margaret, Melinda, 
Ellen and Agnes. The late Mr. Erskine Miller, of Staunton, Vir- 
ginia, was a grandson of Mrs. Agnes D. Erskine. 

James Madison Haynes was the eldest child of William, the 
senior, and was born February 17, 1794. He was one year old when 
his father moved to the McNutt place, which event he distinctly 
remembered in after years. He lived to be sixty-four years of age; 
was a student of Lewisburg Academy and member of the military 
company thereof. He married Miss Elizabeth Dunlap, September 
20, 1821. He was a magistrate of Monroe County and a commis- 
sioner of the county court. He removed to Greenbrier County in 
1840, five miles below Alderson, where he died in 1858. He left 
six children, William Haynes, of Summers County; Alex. D. 
Haynes, a successful merchant of Red Sulphur Springs, who rep- 
resented Monroe County in the Virginia Legislature in 1856, and 
died November 14, 1857. Robert P. Haynes was a major of militia 
before the war between the States, and entered the regular service 
of the Confederacy in the 26th Batallion, Virginia Infantry. He 
was captured at the battle of Cold Harbor, and a few days after 
killed in a railroad collision, July 16, 1864, while on his way to 
Elmira, N. Y., as a prisoner of war. 

The fourth son was Rev. James Haynes, who was graduated 
from Washington College in 1859, entered Union Theological Semi- 
nary in 1859, and graduated in 1862, and located the same year at 
Muddy Creek, and was ordained into the Lewisburg Presbytery 
in 1863. After preaching one year at Anthony's Creek, he entered 
the Confederate Army as chaplain in the spring of 1863, and there 
continued until the close of the war. He preached at Muddy Creek 
from 1865 to 1870, which included McElhanny Chapel in the Mead- 
ows and Lick Creek, when he was placed in charge of an evangeli- 
cal field in Fayette County for two years, making his home at 
Gauley Bridge ; thence he made his home at Cotton Hill. He 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



561 



recently died, leaving a large family. One daughter of James M. 
Haynes never married ; the other, Jane A., married Wm. Caraway, 
of Alderson, West Virginia 

Andrew S. Haynes died at the age of twenty-six at Gap Mills. 

William P. Haynes was born August 2, 1802, and graduated 
in medicine in Philadelphia, and located in Alabama for the prac- 
tice of his profession, but died November, 1825. 

Thomas N. Haynes also graduated in medicine in Philadelphia, 
and practiced for a short time in Monroe ; went to various points 
South, and died in Texas. He was the youngest son of William 
Haynes, and was born August 9, 1805, and was never married. A 
cave on the farm of William Haynes at Gap Mills is pointed out as 
being the scene of the death of two Guinea negroes, man and wife, 
many years ago. They were the property of William Haynes, and 
were noted for their thieving propensities. They committed some 
theft, for which they received a severe whipping by the overseer, 
with the promise of its repetition in a day or two. The next day 
they were missing. Search being made, they were found with their 
throats cut and sitting erect against the side of the cave, the man 
still holding in his hand the razor with which the fatal deed had 
been done. These superstitious slaves, believing that they would 
return to Guinea after death, had taken all of the clothes and money 
they possessed into the cave with them. The money had been 
placed in the dress pocket of the woman with a view to bearing 
the expenses of their spiritual transportation, and was buried in 
the cave with the bodies. 

The present family of Haynes of the county are the descendants 
of the late William Haynes, a son of James Madison Haynes, who 
resided at the old Haynes ferry plantation on Greenbrier River 
about five miles West of Alderson, and Thomas N. Haynes, of 
Pack's Ferry, on New River near the mouth, of Bluestone, on the 
opposite side therefrom, residing on the old Captain Grandison 
Landcraft place, on which the old Pack's Ferry was originally 
established many years ago by the Packs, the first settlers of that 
region. He is the son of Mr. George Haynes, of Big Wolf Creek 
in Monroe County, who was a famous horse-trader and owner of 
the water-mill on that creek. J. N. Haynes is one of the best citi- 
zens of the county, and is the father of James Haynes, a successful 
employee of the C. & O. Railway, and Harvey Haynes, a farmer 
on New River. 

J. N. Haynes married a Miss McLaughlin, sister of Rev H. 



562 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY/ WEST VIRGINIA. 



McLaughlin, the able minister of the Missionary Baptist Church, 
and a daughter of James McLaughlin, of Nicholas County. 

Hon. William Haynes resided at his farm of Oak Lawn at the 
old Haynes' Ferry near Pence's Springs all his life. He was an 
educated farmer, practical as well as theoretical, a fine surveyor 
and mathematician. Some of the finest maps of land surveyed 
existing anywhere were made by him. One is now held by Mr. 
Andrew Gwinn at Lowell of his magnificent plantation of 2,000 
acres. He was a son of James Madison Haynes and grandson of 
William, the senior, of the "Gap," and the grandfather of William J. 
Haynes, of Hinton, now engaged in the Hinton Department Co., 
and from whom we acknowledge much of the information we have 
in regard to the ancestral Haynes, having furnished me with a 
sketch from "Dr. McElhenny's Scholars," the old Lewisburg Acad- 
emy, from which we have liberally quoted; William Haynes, Jr., 
being the only son and child of the late James H. Haynes, a son 
of the Hon. William Haynes. 

Hon. William Haynes was born September 5, 1822, and in his 
eighteenth year moved with his father, James M. Haynes, to "Oak 
Lawn," where he died. In 1850 he was married to Miss Amanda 
Ellen Harvey, a sister of the late "Squire" Allen L. Harvey, and 
who was a daughter of James Harvey, of Monroe County. Of this 
union there were born three sons, Jas. Harvey Haynes, who was en- 
gaged in the mercantile business in Hinton at the date of his death, 
on the 15th day of October, 1897, suddenly and without a moment's 
warning. He was a man of strong parts, open, manly and gen- 
erous. At the time of his death he was at the head of the Demo- 
cratic party organization of the county, and it was by his leadership 
the notable victory of 1896 was Avon, when foes from without and 
traitors and enemies from within the party organization had de- 
termined to annihilate the organization within the county, when 
the C. & O. Railway, with all its prestige and power, endeavored 
to force the county under its "Gold Standard" into the Republican 
camp ; when the president of the great road went all over the city 
in a carriage drawn by four horses, accompanied by the superin- 
tendent and lesser officials, threatening employees with confiscation 
of jobs and dire calamity. It was then that the great power of 
Jas. H. Haynes was exhibited at its best as an organizer. Never 
losing his head or his good temper, he organized the party as had 
never been done before, and saved the county to the Democratic 
party. At the next convention of the party strong and sincere 
resolutions were passed, emulating his character and his virtues. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 563 

He had been a teacher, farmer and merchant. The other son, John, 
is one of the leading merchants of Hinton and one of the owners 
of the Hinton Department Co., a leading Democrat, and one of the 
members of the common council of the city of Hinton. The other 
son, Harry Haynes, resides with his mother at the ancestral home 
on the banks of the Greenbrier, is a farmer and was elected in 1900 
a member of the county court of the county, and is now its presi- 
dent. 

Hon. William Haynes was elected a member of the Constitu- 
tional Convention of 1871, which framed the second Constitution 
of West Virginia and the one now existing in the State. He was 
prominently connected with farm organizations for many years ; was 
lecturer and secretary of the State Grange, and believed that in the 
union of the farmer there was strength. In 1892 he was nominated 
and elected a member of the State Senate from Eighth Senatorial 
District of the State of which Summers was a part, serving for four 
years with honor. It was during this term that Charles J. Faulkner 
and Johnson N. Camden were elected for the last time to the 
Senate of the United States, they being the last Democrats elected to 
that body from the State. He was educated at the old Lewisburg 
Academy under Dr. McElhenny, as had his father before him, and, 
as stated elsewhere, was directly related to the American poet, Paul 
Hayne, and the great orator and statesman from South Carolina, 
Hon. Robert Young Hayne, who had the celebrated oratorical tilt 
with Daniel Webster. He was a consistent and energetic member 
of the Presbyterian Church for forty years, high in its councils, and 
one of its pillars in this section of the State. He was noted for his 
kind heart and Christian character. His farm was a model; he 
demonstrated his theories by practical applications. At the date of 
the formation of this county as created he made a survey for a 
new county under the direction of Dr. Samuel Williams and A. P. 
Pence, Esq., of New Richmond. Had this county been formed in- 
stead of Summers, the county seat would have been at New Rich- 
mond instead of Hinton. 

In 1874 the famous political fight was made, in which Mr. Haynes 
was the Democratic nominee against Hon. Sylvester Upton, a very 
estimable citizen of Jumping Branch, and who had represented the 
county of Mercer in the State Legislature. Mr. Upton was a Repub- 
lican of conservative inclinations, but ran as an independent candi- 
date, receiving the full vote of his own party and a strong element 
of the Democratic party, led by Mr. Elbert Fowler, who found fault 
with the manner of the nomination of Mr. Haynes, which was made 



564 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



by "passing around the hat" at a mass-meeting held in the grove 
where Mr. Dwight James now lives in Hinton. Whether the nomi- 
nation was regular or fair, or whether it was unfair, it is not 
possible now to say ; but no charge or hint was ever suggested 
that Mr. Haynes was a party to anything wrong in connection with 
the nomination, as he was in no wise a candidate. Mr. Upton was 
successful, and the result submitted to by Mr. Haynes in that philo- 
sophical spirit for which he was noted. In the election for the 
Constitutional Convention and to the State Senate he was not a 
candidate for either position, but was nominated and elected by 
reason of the high esteem in which he was held by his fellow citi- 
zens. In those days the custom had not entirely ceased to exist 
of the office seeking the man. 

His death was sudden and without warning. In addition to his 
three sons, he left surviving him two daughters, Misses Isabella 
and Mary and his widow, who still reside at the old homestead 
with Mr. Harry Haynes. The homestead is a part of the 400 
acres at Haynes' Ferry granted by the Commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia to James Graham, Sr., which was acquired by James Madi- 
son Haynes, who owned it at his death. A part of this farm de- 
scended to William Haynes and to his children, and a part was 
purchased by Joseph Nowlan, and is now owned by Mrs. Tolly. 
Hon. William Haynes was a scientific farmer, as is his son, Harry, 
and it is not uncommon for his cornfield to produce 100 bushels 
to the acre. 

BACON. 

Robert Carter Bacon was a direct descendant of the famous pa- 
triotic leader of Bacon's rebellion against the authority of Lord 
Berkeley in Virginia in the early colonial days, Berkeley being the 
English nobleman, then Governor, against whose authority Na- 
thaniel Bacon led a revolt, and on whose death the revolution col- 
lapsed, facts of history known to all who have read the history of 
this county, and his name will live in history to the remotest ages 
and as long as history is written. 

Robert Carter Bacon came to this country before the Civil War, 
formed an acquaintance with Jacob Fluke, who resided on the 
plantation now known as the Bacon place. At that time there was 
located where Bacon's Mill is now situated, around the bend of the 
Greenbrier, back of the Big Bend Mountain, some two and one 
half miles from Talcott Station, "Fluke's" mill and carding ma- 
chine, run and operated from the splendid water-power at that 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 565 



point. Soon after Mr. Bacon's arrival in the community this mill 
was burned and utterly destroyed, a total loss to Mr. Fluke, who 
was not able to rebuild on the plans desired, and Bacon became a 
partner and interested in the property, and on the site of the de- 
stroyed plant was built Bacon's Mill, just prior to the war a few 
years, and which is still standing to-day, being a large two-story 
frame structure, with wooden turbine, wheel and machinery for 
the manufacture of grain into flour, feed and meal. It has for 
years been the only available mill in that region, and is patronized 
for miles around, it being an "all-the-year-around" mill, and not a 
"wet-weather" enterprise. Later, Mr. Bacon married Miss M. N. 
Fluke, the only daughter of Jacob Fluke, and each of her brothers 
dying in the Southern Army. On the death of her father she 
inherited all of the properties formerly owned by him, and is now 
the posessor of one of the best and most elaborate farms in the 
county, consisting of. 1,000 acres of land on the Greenbrier. 

Robert C. Bacon died in the year 1880, leaving the widow who 
still survives, and who is a lady of rare good sense, culture and 
refinement, one son, Nathaniel, and one daughter, Miss Mary, 
who died a few years ago in New Mexico, where she had gone in 
search of health. 

N. Bacon, the son, is now cashier of the Talcott Banking & 
Guaranty Co., incorporated under the laws of the State of West 
Virginia on the 29th day of September, 1906. He is also president 
of the Talcott Toll Bridge Co. and actively engaged in farming 
and stock raising, and is progressive and active in business affairs. 
We are able, through his courtesy, to give some data in regard to 
the Bacon lands. 

Robert C. Bacon was a gentleman of education, an "Old Vir- 
ginian" of business foresight. To secure the advantages of the 
water-power below Talcott on the Greenbrier, which is very fine, 
he secured all the river frontage from above Talcott to a distance 
- below his mill, three miles. Some time before his death he 
prepared his last will and testament in his own handwriting, de- 
vising all of his property to his wife. Nathaniel Bacon is the 
only man of the name in the county, and is a direct descendant 
of the colonial Bacons and Carters. Jacob Fluke was one of the 
first settlers on the Greenbrier River within the countv. 

Robert Carter Bacon came to the territory of Summers County 
to John Gwinn's, in the Lick Creek country, on the 23d of Novem- 
ber, 1853. There he took sick, and meeting with Andrew Gwinn, of 
the Lowell settlement, when he became able, he returned to Mr. 



566 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Gwinn's house, a mile east of Lowell, and while there he was 
present at a trial before Squire Gwinn over a sheep killing dog, 
at which trial he met Jacob Fluke, his future father-in-law and the 
grandfather of Nathaniel Bacon. Mr. Fluke's mill — and carding 
machine — had been burned down a short time before, which was 
located on the present site of Bacon's Mill and where it now stands. 
He bought the site of that mill from Jacob Fluke, and while build- 
ing the present mill thereon, boarded with him and remained there 
until he married his only daughter, Miss Nancy Mathews Fluke. 

When he was twenty-one years old, his father desired 
that he enter into the practice of medicine. The son, how- 
ever, declined, declaring that medicine was a humbug, and that he 
would beg from door to door before he would do it. The old 
gentleman told him it was time to try it, and on that day the son 
left home, went to Clarksville, and bought a suit of clothes from 
a friend, whom he made promise that if he never paid for it, that 
he would not ask his father for his money. He w^ent from thence 
to Tennessee and taught school there, earning his first money. 
, From there he went to Pine Bluff, Arkansas, w T here he had three 
brothers who were operating a cotton farm. He proceeded to be- 
come a bookkeeper and a clerk for a firm in that town, Alltschul & 
Bloom. There he lost his health, and returned to Clarksville, Vir- 
ginia, being confined to his bed with congestive chills. His doctor 
advised him that one more chill would kill him. He got on his 
horse and started for the White Sulphur Springs ; took one drink 
of the water, declared he would not pay fifty cents for the whole 
place because it smelled like rotten eggs. He then started to Fay- 
etteville to visit a Colonel Coleman, with whom he was acquainted, 
took sick at John Gwinn's, and landed as above stated. He never 
had another chill from the time he left Clarksville. He went 
through the Civil War as a Confederate soldier, being a quarter- 
master in the Confederate Army. He was buried at Barger Springs, 
having died February 8, 1885. He was the sixth child of the 
fifteen children of Colonel Lydall Bacon and Mary Ann Bacon, 
whose maiden name was Mary Ann Carter, of Nottoway County, 
Virginia. Colonel Lydall. Bacon was born December 26, 1793, and 
was a son of Drury Allen Bacon and Nancy E. Bacon. Sons of 
this Bacon settled in Tennessee and Georgia. Colonel Lydall 
Bacon died June 23, 1875, aged eighty-one years and six months. 
Drury Allen Bacon was born December 4, 1765, and was the elev- 
enth child of Lydall Bacon and Mary Bacon. Her maiden name 
was Mary Thompson, of Lunenburg, Virginia. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



567 



INSCRIPTION ON THE TOMBSTONE OF NATHANIEL 

BACON. 

"Here lieth the body of Nathaniel Bacon, Esquire, whose de- 
scent was from the ancient house of Bacon, one of which was 
Chancellor Bacon and Lord Berulian, who was ancestor of Vir- 
ginia and President of the Honorable Council of the State and 
Commissioner in Chief for the County of York, having been such 
commissioner for above six years, and having always discharged 
the office in which he served with great fidelity and loyalty to his 
friends, who departed this life the 16th of March, 1692." 

The tombstone from which the above inscription is taken lies 
in the old churchyard of Glebe of York, Hampton Parish, at Hamp- 
ton, Virginia. 

KESLER. 

Osborn Taylor Kesler (named after General Zachary Taylor), 
who now resides on the old Gwinn farm at Pence's Springs station, 
on the C. & O. Railway, was born on the 2d day of October, 1849, 
in Botetourt County, Virginia, and removed with his father, Abra- 
ham C. Kesler, to Monroe County, now Summers, in 1858. The 
wife of A. C. Kesler and mother of O. T. Kesler was Miss Sallie 
Coiner. The Keslers are of German descent. Abraham C. Kesler, 
the founder of the family in this county, is now about eighty years 
of age. He first settled on what is known as the "Chattin" farm, 
across Greenbrier River from Talcott. O. T. Kesler married Miss 
Sallie A. Keller, October, 1869, a daughter of George Keller, Esq., 
of Lowell, and is a descendant of the Kellers who settled at Lowell 
in the early Indian fighting days, when that section was settled 
by the Grahams, Konrads, Kellers, Ferrells and Hinchmans, Homer 
Kesler, postmaster and merchant at Pence Springs, is the only 
child of O. T. Kesler. 

O. T. Kesler has been one of the leading citizens of the county, 
engaged for many years as a stock dealer and farmer, taking an 
active interest in the politics of the county, being a Democrat in 
his party principles. He is the present general manager of the 
Summers Dairy & Food Co., a corporation chartered in the fall of 
1906, the present business being conducted is the dairy. A modern 
establishment is being placed in operation on the farm at Pence 
Springs, on the Greenbrier River, purchased from Mr. Kesler for 
$4,000.00. The farm consists of the old Gwinn place, one of the 



568 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



first grants in the county acquired by Silas R. Mason from Andrew 
Gwinn (Long Andy), the celebrated and prosperous farmer at 
Lowell, and by Mr. Kesler from Mason. 

In 1888 Mr. Kesler was nominated for sheriff without opposition 
as the Democratic candidate, and was elected over Hon. Sira W. 
Willey, the Independent Republican candidate. He held the posi- 
tion for the full term of four years. L. McD. Meadows was his 
first deputy for the west side of New River. He, dying soon after 
the election, Henry F. Kesler, a brother of O. T. Kesler, filled the 
position to the end of the term. 

In 1896 Mr. Kesler was again a candidate for sheriff before the 
Democratic primary, but was defeated by James H. George, of 
Green Sulphur Springs. Mr. Kesler is an active, enterprising man, 
and is now one of the jury commissioners of the county. 

Bunyan L. Kesler is the second son of Abraham C. Kesler, and 
is a farmer and stock dealer, and resides at Lowell, having married 
a Miss Lively, a sister of the Hon. Frank Lively. In 1900 he was 
appointed to re-assess the real estate of the county by the State 
Board of Public Works, on the recommendation of the county 
court of the county. In 1906 he drilled for sulphur water at Lowell 
on the west side of the Greenbrier, and succeeded in developing a 
very fine mineral water, which is likely in the future to become^ 
famous and make its discoverer wealthy. The analysis of the water 
is given elsewhere. 

Henry F. Kesler, the third son of Abraham Kesler, married 
Miss Ella Lively, a sister also of Mr. Frank Lively, and resides on 
a good farm on Greenbrier River between Lowell and Talcott, a 
part of the old Kincaid-Griffith Meadows tract. He was born in 
1854, and has been twice nominated by his party, the Democratic, 
and elected to the position of county superintendent of public 
schools. His first term under the old law in 1882 was for two 
years, and his second term of four years began in 1898. He is one 
of the oldest in service of the teachers of the county, is a gentleman 
of accomplishments and a practical and successful educator as well, 
as farmer. He is a Democrat in politics and a Presbyterian. He is 
also one of the oldest and most successful teachers of vocal music in 
this region, having pursued that vocation in his younger days. 
Hon. Upshur Higginbotham, now an attorney located at Charles- 
ton and the accomplished private secretary to Hon. Joseph Holt 
Gaines, M. C., married the oldest daughter of Mr. Henry F. Kesler. 

George Kesler, the youngest son of Mr. Abraham C. Kesler, 
was born in 1861. He is a resident of Greenville, Monroe County, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 569 



being now the proprietor of the famous old grist-mill at that town 
on Indian Creek. A. C. Kesler, the ancestor, still resides near 
Lowell, and is in the possession of his mental and physical activi- 
ties, although one of our oldest citizens. 

BRAGG. 

The Braggs were early settlers in Green Sulphur District, 
especially in the Laurel Creek and Chestnut Mountain region, and 
their descendants still reside in that section, but not in great 
numbers. 

The most celebrated Bragg of the name was the Rev. John 
Bragg, a good Missionary Baptist minister, and who was a hardy 
pioneer in the work of the Master. Some mention of his great 
labor in this rough and then poor and sparsely settled region is 
due to history. He was a verteran soldier of the cross in the wil- 
derness in all the surrounding counties. He was born December 
21, 1815, and married twice, his first wife being Amanda Thompson, 
and the second, Mary J. Witt. By his first wife he reared twelve 
children, and by the second, eight, twenty in all. During his min- 
istry he united in marriage 396 couples, and was the pastor of 
practically all the churches organized in the early days in the 
territory of Raleigh, Summers, Greenbrier, Monroe and Fayette 
Counties. In 1884 he removed to Imperial, Nebraska, where he 
died many years ago. He has two sons now residing in this county, 
Judson Bragg, of Pipestem, and Braxton Bragg, named after the 
two famous generals of the same name, one a Confederate general 
who fought at the great battle of Chickamauga, and the other a 
Union general of Wisconsin. 

One daughter, Mrs. Dr. Clement White, resides in Raleigh. 

RYAN. 

White G. Ryan was a native of Fluvanna County, Virginia, 
born in 1815, and removed to Mercer County, now Summers, in 
February, 1857, bought 392 acres of land from Edmond Lilly's 
heirs. He was an Irishman, and the red blood of the Celtic race 
was strong in his veins. He enlisted in the Confederate army, and 
was the captain commanding Ryan's Company, Company I, Third 
Virginia Regiment, as brave a lot of men as fought in that army. 
He was educated for the law, and practiced that profession, but 
divided his time between the law and his farm. He was elected in 



570 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



1872 as the first elected prosecuting attorney of the county, serving 
four years, a full term, with J. Speed Thompson as his assistant. 
In November, 1841, he was united in marriage with Miss Mary 
Jane Burnett. He was licensed to practice law in 1858. 

Captain Ryan was an ardent Southern man and Jeffersonian 
Democrat and a member of the Missionary Baptist Church. His 
children were Joseph W. Ryan, a successful farmer in the county, 
assistant assessor under E. D. Ferrell, and resides in Pipestem 
District; is a prominent man of intelligence and honor; Edward 
M. Ryan, a Confederate soldier, killed at Cloyd's Mountain battle, 
shot through the heart and fell dead into the arms of his brother; 
Joseph W., Bowman G., John T. and C. L., who is also a success- 
ful farmer of the county, John T. being a locomotive engineer of 
the N. & W. Railway, and Bowman G. also having been killed in 
the army of the Confederate States ; one daughter, Mary W., inter- 
married with W. F. Ryburn, of Glade Springs, Virginia. Captain 
Ryan, during the war, was also division provost marshal ; was 
captured at Waynesboro, Virginia, on the 2d of March, 1862, and 
carried by the Federals to Fort Delaware as a prisoner of war. He 
organized two companies for the service of the Southern cause 
from Mercer County, then Virginia, being the captain of each 
company. 

Joseph W. Ryan was wounded in the war by being shot through 
the thigh. He has been married three times, his first wife being 
Fannie Lee Wilson, of Fayette County; the second, Miss Minerva 
A. French, of Mercer County, and the third, Miss Sarah F. Pine, 
of Mercer. 

His children are Bertie Edwards, Mary Verne, who married 
Rufus Butler; Charles W., Rachel R. and Fred L. 

Captain W. G. Ryan, before the war was an ardent AA^hig, and 
was opposed to secession, but went with his State, and after the 
war and until his death, some five years ago, was identified with 
the Democratic organization. An uncompromising friend and an 
open enemy. During the exciting times just prior to the secession 
of Virginia, being opposed to secession, he had a noted fight with 
one William Dunbar, a strong secessionist, who, however, after 
the secession, organized a company of bushwhackers to prey on 
the citizens of the border. He was one of the prominent men of 
the county, and took an active interest in public affairs up to his 
death, although in his later years living somewhat a retired life. 
He was a familiar figure at party conventions, a strong speaker and 
influential in his section. He was one of the founders of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 571 



county. The farm which he bought and resided on at his death 
was underlaid with coal, and became a valuable inheritance to his 
children. He was a brave, loyal pioneer. 

BOWLES. 

There is living on the Hump Mountain, in Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict, several families by the name of Bowles, which is a familiar 
name to all of the inhabitants of Summers County. The original 
settler, whose name was William Allen Bowles, was an English- 
man who crossed the ocean shortly after the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence by the thirteen American colonies. His wife's name was 
Sarah Preston, and was Irish. Both he and his wife crossed the 
Atlantic Ocean on the same ship before their marriage, and were 
unable to pay their transportation. Both were arrested and sold 
for the amount of their ship fare across the sea to New York. 
William A. Bowles was sold to a tanner, and Sarah Preston was 
sold to a baker, each for a term of seven years. After the expira- 
tion of this long period they were married, and removed to Frank- 
lin County, Virginia. 

David Bowles, the oldest son, was born in Franklin County, 
Virginia, and was bound out at the age of ten years. Before his 
term of service expired he was removed to Raleigh, then Giles 
County. After his majority he married Ruth Richmond, a daugh- 
ter of William Richmond. She was born on the 15th of March, 
1818, and died February 22, 1895, her grandfather coming from 
Germany, as well as her grandmother. David Bowles and his wife, 
who were married on April 5, 1836, settled in what is now Sum- 
mers County, two miles below Richmond's Falls, on the Hump 
Mountain, at the old David Bowles place, now owned by W. W. 
Richmond and wife, of the city of Hinton, and was a farmer by 
occupation, born on the 17th day of December, 1811. His wife 
was born on March 18, 1818. They raised seven children, three 
girls and four boys. Four of the children are still living. The 
girls' names were Cynthia, who married Beckenridge Gwinn Oc- 
tober 15, 1858, and died in Carroll County; Jude Ann died Novem- 
ber 8, 1864; Ruth died in infancy; Louisa Jane married T. L. 
Bragg, and lives now in Oklahoma. She was married March 3, 
1867. 

David Bowles was a great hunter in his day, the forests then 
abounding in bear, deer, wild turkeys, panthers and wolves. On 
one occasion he killed a buck that weighed 150 pounds, which he 



572 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



carried to Blue Sulphur Springs, a distance of twenty miles, and 
sold it for $8.00. He used to relate to his children that he had 
seen thirty-one deer in one herd. He killed on Lick Creek a 
panther measuring eleven feet from the end of tail to the end of 
its nose. He was attacked by this vicious animal, having no 
weapons with which to defend himself except a dirk knife, one 
dog and two pups. He stabbed the panther nine times, eight 
times through the heart. He built the first schoolhouse in all that 
region at his own expense, and employed the teacher at like 
expense. The house was made, as was universal in those days, 
with a dirt floor and clapboard roof. 

His death occurred July 11, 1885, his wife having died pre- 
viously, and both were buried at the family graveyard on the old 
home place. He left surviving him James Bowles, the youngest 
son, who died some eight years ago ; William Bowles, who still 
resides on Hump Mountain, some two miles from Meadow Creek 
Station ; Ervin E. Bowles, who also resides on that mountain, and 
David Bowles, Jr., who also resides in the same vicinity. 

David Bowles, Jr., is an old schoolteacher, and has held the 
position of Road Commissioner for this district, being a man of 
intelligence. William Bowles is quite a geologist, having taken 
up the study on his own account, and he has claimed to have found 
considerable deposits of gold, coal, and other minerals in the Hump 
Mountain, which, however, is doubted by mineralogists. He 
has not gotten his practical knowledge of geology into exten- 
sive uses, nor has he applied it beyond the narrow precincts of the 
Hump Mountain, principally on his own farm. 

Mr. Ervin Bowles is quite an authority on the Bible and Bibli- 
cal literature, he being able to repeat large portions of both the 
Old and New Testament from memory. James Bowles, the young- 
est son of David Bowles, died August 17, 1895, without issue. 

There have been fifty-one grandchildren born to David Bowles, 
Sr., in his lifetime. 

P. K. LITSINGER. 

One of the men who has made this county his adopted resi- 
dence and made a success is Pearnis Keefer Litsinger, born at 
Storistown, Pa., where his father, a tinner by trade, was tempo- 
rarily engaged, but whose residence was Westminster, Maryland, 
were young Litsinger grew up. He was born on the 23d day of 
June, 1858, and married Miss Lena Fredeking, at Hinton, on the 




DR. WM. LEIGH BARKSDALE, 
Surgeon in the Confederate Army, an Old "Virginia 
Gentleman with His Valet, "Squire" Law. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



573 



21st day of June, 1891. He began as a machine smith, and followed 
his occupation in Baltimore, Richmond, and finally arriving at Hin- 
ton on the 27th of December, 1879, and began his employment with 
the C. & O. Railway in its shops here, which continued until within 
the past five years. He is an organization Democrat, belonging to 
Litsinger alone. Being loyal to his friends, he has friends of his 
own. He was elected mayor of the city of Hinton in 1894, and 
re-elected to succeed himself, and again elected in 1898, having 
served for three full terms, and is prominently spoken of for the 
position again at the next election ; besides, he has served several 
terms of a member of the city council. At the election of 1904 
he was elected a justice of the peace for Greenbrier District for 
a term of four years, and is now filling that position. He is a 
Shriner in Masonry, and takes great interest in that, as well as 
in all other secret order work, being also a member of the B. P. 
O. E. and other orders, and has done as much, if not more, than 
any other citizen in supporting and maintaining the progressive- 
ness of the societies of which he is a member. He has, by judicious 
investments and good judgment in financial matters, accumulated 
a handsome fortune, owning a handsome residence in the extreme 
lower end of the city. Mr. Litsinger is a tireless worker, full of 
energy and push. He married Miss Lena Fredeking, a daughter 
of the early settler, Charles Fredeking. He is the President of 
the Independent Publishing Company, a director of the Hinton 
Masonic Real Estate Company, the Hinton Water Company, and 
numerous other of the leading business enterprises of Hinton. 



WILLIAM L. BARKSDALE. 

William L. Barksdale, now a citizen of Hinton and a native of 
Virginia, was born on the 11th of November, 1836, in Halifax 
County. He married Miss Mary N. Holt, a daughter of 
George W. Holt and Ann Logan, on the 23d of October, 1872. He 
was educated at the Samuel Davis Institute and the University of 
Virginia, taking a medical course at that university, and eventually 
graduating at the Jefferson Medical College, of Louisville, Ken- 
tucky. Dr. Barksdale had located for the practice of his profes- 
sion at Lewisburg, and was there at the opening of the hostilities 
between the States in 1861. He promptly enlisted as surgeon in 
Jackson's Cavalry, Twenty-second Regiment, Edgar's Battalion, 
Patterson's Brigade, Warden's Division, and continued as a sur- 
geon in the army throughout the war. After the war he returned 



574 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



to Lewisburg, but later returned to Virginia and practiced his pro- 
fession for five years, and until the death of his father. Later, he 
returned to West Virginia, and finally, in January, 1874, located 
at Alderson, and practiced his profession in that community. In 
1892 he removed to Hinton, at which place he has continued to 
reside until the present time. Dr. Barksdale has been continuously 
in the active practice of his profession since 1858, except two years 
and a half he was engaged in the lumber business at Barksdale. 
He is an enterprising citizen and a successful surgeon and prac- 
titioner. His great experience during the war gave him great 
opportunity for developing into one of the many great surgeons 
which that war produced. He was of a family of physicians and 
surgeons, his father being a doctor before him, as well as a number 
of others of his family. He is a relative- of the famous Manchester 
lawyer, Leigh, after whom he was named. He has one son, Holt, 
who is now preparing himself for the medical profession in the 
Northwestern University of Chicago. Another son, John, resides 
with the father in Hinton. The other son, William L., Jr., having 
died a few years ago. His oldest daughter Annie, married Charles 
Bailey. His other three daughters, Misses Seldon, Cary and 
Maggie, reside with their father in Hinton. 

It was through the enterprise of Dr. Barksdale that the Brown- 
stone industry was at one time developed in this country. It was 
due to his efforts and to those of Judge W. G. Hudgin that the 
Alderson Brownstone Company was formed, which constructed 
a railroad up Griffith's Creek to the quarries on the John Graham 
land. 

He is the owner of the largest tract of land owned by a single 
individual in Summers County at this time'. This tract of land of 
about 4,000 acres lies near Brooks. Dr. Barksdale is a true rep- 
resentative of the ''old Virginia gentleman/' a man of honor, faith- 
ful to his friends and his profession. In one of the most interest- 
ing cases in which he was called as an expert was that of the late 
J. S. Thompson, tried for the murder of Elbert Fowler at Lewis- 
burg in 1885. 

HINTON-JOHNSON FIGHT. 

John Hinton. the father of Joe, Silas and Evan Hinton, went 
one day before the Avar to Richmond's Mill, ten miles west of 
Hinton, to get a "grist ground." In those days, when enough 
apples could be gotten together, they were converted into apple 
jack. On this occasion there were enough men to get up a good- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY/ WEST VIRGINIA. 575 

sized row — one of old-fashioned apple jack. The country in those 
days was new, rough and wild. Andy Johnson and Jake Adkins 
were each at the mill that day, and each claiming to be the "best 
man in the county." Johnson said "he weighed 164 pounds, and 
was the best man that ever walked on two legs on the New River 
Bottoms." Adkins said "he was the best man that ever walked 
on the New River Bottoms, and weighed 140 pounds." They 
prepared for a round or two just to see who was the best man. 
Andy Bennett walked up, strutted around and said that "he was 
the best man that ever walked on the New River Bottoms," where- 
upon Johnson struck at him, and they went at it. Johnson 
knocked him down and got on top of him. Bennett hallowed: 
"Take him off and let me get my coat off, and I'll lick him." 
They pulled Johnson off, let Bennett get his coat off, and they 
went at it again. Bennett again hallowed "Enough," and they 
let him up and the fight was over, and Bennett pulled away and 
knocked Johnson down while they were politely waiting to see 
which was the best man that ever walked on the New River 
Bottoms. 

DUNN. 

Hon. Edward L. Dunn is a native of Monroe County, but has 
been a citizen of Summers since its formation. He is a descend- 
ant of an old and honorable family of that name long resident of 
the lower end of the. good county of Monroe. 

In 1870 he was united in marriage with Miss Mattie J. Baber, 
a daughter of Rev. Powhattan B. Baber, the distinguished Chris- 
tian minister who resided in the Red Sulphur Springs neighbor- 
hood, and grandfather of the Rev. P. B. Baber, Jr., minister also 
of the same church, and who is making his mark as one of the 
rising men of his church, who is not afraid to work with his 
gloves off. 

E. L. Dunn has for a large part of his life since his majority 
been engaged in the mercantile business at Indian Mills, where 
he made of the business a success. In 1880 he was elected for a 
term of four years justice of the peace in a Democratic district. 
In 1888 he was re-elected to succeed himself for a second term of 
four years. In 1898 he was appointed deputy sheriff under M. V. 
Calloway. In 1900 he was appointed by President William Mc- 
Kinley supervisor of the census for the Southern West Virginia 
District. In 1901 he was appointed by Governor A. B. White 
as a member of the Band of Regents of the State Normal Schools 



576 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of West Virginia, which position he held for four years, and was 
reappointed by Governor Dawson in 1904, and is at present hold- 
ing that honorable and respectable position. He was the active 
promoter in organizing the Greenbrier Springs Company and se- 
curing for it the property now owned, and was the first and the 
only general manager of the company. 

Mr. Dunn is a straight-out-from-the-shoulder Republican, al- 
ways adhering to the principles of the party and voting its ticket. 
He with his wife now reside at the Greenbrier Springs, where he 
owns a cottage. His son, Air. George Dunn, resides at Talcott, 
and is one of the leading merchants of that section, having mar- 
ried Miss Laura McNeer, a daughter of John Wesley McXeer, 
of Greenville, in Monroe County. He, like his father, takes an 
active part in politics, both being identified with the controlling 
faction of the party in the county. "Squire" (E. L.) Dunn, as he 
is universally known, is a man of integrity, honor and reliability, 
and one of the substantial men of the count v. 

DR. SAMUEL WILLIAMS. 

This most remarkable man is deserving of more than a passing 
notice in a true history of Summers County, by reason of his pe- 
culiarities, his great size, his great mind and wonderful and thor- 
ough education and information, and his early friendship to the 
people, especially to the youth and young men of the region 
around about where he lived. 

He emigrated into the Lick Creek settlement in the early part 
of the war, from Putnam County, Virginia, now West Virginia, 
on the Kanawha River, having made his headquarters at John 
Garrett's, and practiced medicine in Putnam County. His loca- 
tions prior to that are unknown. He was possibly a native of 
Hanover County, Virginia, as he sometimes mentioned that 
county as if having lived and hunted there. He was an active 
man ; very, fond of hunting and a fine shot on the wing, although 
he weighed 350 pounds, and was not over four and a half feet in 
height. So large was he and so ponderous was his stomach that he 
could not fasten his shoes or his clothes. Soon after he located at 
Lick Creek he met and married Miss Margaret Miller, a daughter 
of Irving Benson Miller, son of John, Sr., and a sister of John 
A. Miller, of Asbury, in Greenbrier County; James W. Mil- 
ler, the hotel proprietor in Hinton, and the late Olen B. Miller, 
of Alderson. He continued to practice his profession in the Lick 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 577 



Creek country, locating at Green Sulphur Springs until the rail- 
road was under construction, about 1872, when he removed to 
New Richmond, at which place he resided until his death from 
heart disease, very suddenly, about 1885, practicing in all that 
and the Lick Creek section. Wjth all his size, he would ride and 
travel all over the Chestnut and Hump Mountain and the Irish 
Mountain in Raleigh to visit the sick until his death, for some 
time being the surgeon for the C. & O. Railroad Company. His 
charges were most moderate if he charged at all, and seldom if 
ever compelled payment, and was not very particular about paying 
himself. He, with Dr. N. W. Noel, a physician at Green Sul- 
phur, opened and conducted the first drug store in the county, 
which was at New Richmond, during the construction of the rail- 
road. His education was complete, having graduated at the two 
great universities, that of the University of Virginia, at Char- 
lottesville, Virginia, and of the University of South Carolina, at 
Chapel Hill. He could read, as well as the ordinarily educated 
man in the English could his language, a great number (13) differ- 
ent languages. He was a thoroughly read and informed man on 
all subjects; could carry on intelligent conversation with his vis- 
itors, and while doing so read a book or newspaper. He would 
frequently, in the midst of an animated conversation, fall asleep, 
and on waking proceed with the conversation where he left off. 

Directly after the war he, without charge,- offered free lectures 
to the young men of Lick Creek, which were conducted at night 
at the Baptist Church. In its connection he organized a debating 
society among the young men, frequently preparing speeches for 
those participating on both sides of the question, when they did 
not feel competent to do it themselves. His teachings were only 
lectures delivered to his audience on grammar, etc., questioning to 
ascertain their progress and attention, for all of which no com- 
pensation was desired or received. Many of the young men of the 
locality had been in the war. The schools for five years had en- 
tirely suspended, and he thus secured, to all who desired, an op- 
portunity to secure knowledge of which they were deficient. The 
young people for miles around attended these free lectures, for it 
was "sitting at the feet of Gamaliel." He accumulated no property, 
and desired none. 

When he died he left surviving him a widow, who still lives ; 
two sons, Bion, now dead, and William A., now residing in Rich- 
mond, Va., and Samuel Tilden, a cigar-maker, and Miss Susie, a 
trained nurse, in Durham, N. C. From whence he came or who 



578 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



his relations were, no one knows. He never mentioned them, ex- 
cept he would sometimes talk of his mother. He was a man of a 
great and generous, good heart, as big as his body. At his death 
he was supposed to be about sixty years old, and he was buried 
in the old Miller burying-ground on Lick Creek. 

LANE. 

There has been but. one family of this name in the 
county. It consisted of Moses Lane, who settled on Brush Creek, 
in Monroe County, then moved to Crump's Bottom, in this county, 
and then emigrated to Field's Creek, on the Kanawha River. 
The sons of Moses Lane who continued to live in the county were 
Franklin, who settled in the Ellison country and still lives there, 
being now seventy-six years old ; Charles and John, who were 
twin brothers and lived near the mouth of Little Bluestone, and 
emigrated to Indiana during the war. Charles lived all his life 
on Pipestem Creek. William also emigrated to Indiana in his 
youth, and died there in . early manhood, unmarried. John also 
settled and died in Indiana. James, the next son, settled near the 
Captain Ryan place, and later moved to Pennsylvania, where he 
resides. Marion, the youngest son, now fifty-two years old, re- 
sides on his farm on Madam's Creek. He married Miss Elizabeth 
Lilly, daughter of Samuel Lilly. They have eight children living 
and three dead. He is one of our intelligent citizens. 

There were nine daughters in the family of Moses Lane, mak- 
ing a family of sixteen children, all of whom grew to the age of 
maturity except one child. Moses Lane married Miss Cynthia 
Lawrence, of Monroe County. Her father was a native of Ire- 
land. The Lane ancestors were also from beyond the sea, were 
Union men, opposed to secession of the States. 

JAMES T. M'CREERY. 

Mr. McCreery is of Irish descent, and was born in Union, 
Monroe County, on the 1st of January, 1845. His father was 
William McCreery, who was a native of Ireland, and who emi- 
grated after the Civil War and located on a large boundary of 
land three miles north of Beckley, in Raleigh County, where he 
resided until the date of his death, leaving surviving him Hon. 
John W. McCreery, one of the prominent citizens of that county, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 579 



and one of those largely responsible for the development of that 
now prosperous region. 

He is a prominent attorney of that county, and has been a 
member of the State Senate from his district and president of that 
body. He has also been elected prosecuting attorney of his county, 
and has held other positions of honor and trust. He is also presi- 
dent of the Bank of Raleigh, Beckley Electric Light & Water Co., 
and is the owner of large landed properties in connection with his 
brother, Jas. T. He is one of the wealthiest men of the State, 
and highly esteemed at home and abroad; and Jas. T., the subject 
of this history, with his brother, Senator John W. McCreery, 
with business foresight, began early in the development of the 
coal regions of the State to acquire a large acreage of real estate 
in the early days, which has appreciated as developments came, 
and to-day he is one of the wealthiest men of the country. 

Jas. T. is the president of the New River & Southwestern R. R. 
Co., a proposed railroad to connect the C. & O. at Hinton with 
the N. & W. at the mouth of East River, following the course of 
New River on a route once only a trail for the Indian, and later 
the path of the pioneer hunter, discoverer and settler, and still 
later a country settled and inhabited by intelligent, prosperous 
and law-abiding citizens. He is president of the Hinton Hotel 
Co., and one of the principal promoters of that enterprise now being 
encouraged for the upbuilding and development of the city of 
Hinton. 

Recently he has been selected as the president of the National 
Bank of Summers, on its reorganization into a National bank, 
and on the resignation of Air. Harrison Gwinn, the enterprising 
and excellent first president, on account of advancing years, 
and his long distant residence from the location of the bank. 
Mr. McCreery, is pre-eminently a business man, and has devoted 
his entire time to business enterprises and occupations, never hav- 
ing engaged in political ventures or taken an interest therein 
except to vote in the interest of good government, he, as well as 
his brother, Senator John W. McCreery, being, as their father 
before them, followers after and believers in the doctrines of Jef- 
ferson and Bryan, except he (Jas. T.) was not in sympathy with 
the free coinage of silver at the ratio of 16 to 1, as proclaimed by 
the Democratic platform of 1896. 

Mr. McCreery spent a large part of his earlier life in the county 
of Raleigh, having moved to that county with his father in the 



580 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



year 1855, and was engaged for a number of years in the hotel 
business in Beckley, when he removed to the mouth of Piney, 
where he constructed a handsome residence at one of the 
most picturesque locations for a country seat in the State. 
Here he resided until 1897. when he purchased a handsome brick 
residence in the city of Hinton, in which he has since resided, 
and where he expects to reside the remainder of his days. In the 
meantime he was actively engaged in the land business, having 
promoted the Piney River Railway, which was afterwards ab- 
sorbed by the C. & O., and is now built,, and is in operation as a 
branch of that great trunk line. 

He with others promoted the turnpike leading from the mouth 
of Piney to Beckley, building, a toll bridge across Piney at its 
mouth, which is a covered structure, built of wood, and is still 
well preserved. The station at the mouth of Piney is named for 
him, and is called "McCreery." He organized the first bridge 
company to construct a bridge across New River at Hinton, but 
never completed the arrangements. 

He married Miss M. E. Prince, who was for many years an 
invalid. She was a daughter of the late Edwin Prince, a wealthy 
capitalist of Beckley. She died at Hinton since the removal of 
the family here. 

Mr. McCreery's family at present consists of three sons and 
three daughters, Mrs. Josie Sawyers, Mrs. Annie Gray and Mrs. 
Ben Perkins, of Parkersburg. W. Ya. 

The founders of the McCreery family in this country were 
three brothers, William, John and Thomas. They were natives 
of Armagh, Ireland. William McCreery came from beyond the 
seas about 1821. John and Thomas came later. William and 
John settled in Monroe County, and Thomas went to Illinois, so 
that the descendants of the McCreerys were Irish. William mar- 
ried Mary S. Francis, a daughter of an old Monroe family of 
that name, James, Frances and Susan. William McCreery be- 
came prominent in affairs soon after his settlement in this coun- 
try. He merchandised for a number of years at Greenville, in 
Monroe County; later located at Fincastle. Virginia, and became 
cashier of the Fincastle Bank, with William Glasgow, president, 
which position he occupied for ten years. In 1872 he was a mem- 
ber of the Constitutional Convention which met in Charleston, 
with ex-Governor Samuel Price, president, and framed the pres- 
ent Constitution of the State of West Virginia. In 1879 he was 




JAMES T. McCREERT, 
President National Bank of Summers. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



581 



elected to the House of Delegates from Raleigh County. He set- 
tled in Raleigh County before the war, and died about three miles 
from Beckley, where he owned a large plantation. He was an 
intelligent, honorable and prominent citizen and thoroughly Ameri- 
can. He lived at one time in Union, Monroe County, where Sena- 
tor John W. McCreery was born on July 31. 1845. The only three 
children of William McCreery were John W., James Thomas and 
William H. All three of these brothers were soldiers in the Con- 
federate Army in the Civil War, John W. being a member of 
Company C, Second Virginia Cavalry. James T. was in the ar- 
tillery service. William H. died some years ago, and his widow 
and family still reside in Beckley, Raleigh County. John W. was 
a member of the Senate two terms, elected in 1884 and 1888 for 
terms of four years each, and was president of that body during 
his last term, and made a capable and intelligent official and pre- 
siding officer. His first wife was Miss Aletha Prince, who died, 
leaving one daughter, Aletha, who married Hon. Edward Keat- 
ley, now clerk of the United States Courts at Charleston. His 
first wife was a sister of the wife of James T. McCreery, who 
died a few years ago in Hinton ; also a sister of E. O. Prince and 
Burke Prince, who were among the first settlers of Hinton. His 
second wife, who is also now dead, was, as above stated, a Miss 
Lacy, a sister of the lawyer, portrait painter and teacher, A. J., 
commonly known as "Sandy" Lacy. Jas. T. McCreery was mar- 
ried the second time in 1907 to Miss Hattie Hatch, of New Jersey. 

Senator McCreery settled at Raleigh Court House in 1865, 
studied law, and began the active practice soon thereafter, and 
has followed his profession actively to the present day. He for 
many years practiced his profession actively in our county, and 
beginning with its creation, and has always been noted for his close 
and careful attention to the interests of his clients, and is an in- 
domitable worker. He refused to permit the use of his name as 
a candidate for the judgeship in 1904. 

The McCreerys are Democrats in politics and Presbyterians 
in religious affiliations, Senator McCreery being actively engaged 
in church and charitable work, and his influence is always found 
in aid of morality and the best interests of society. 

The great-grandmother on his mother's side was a sister of 
Senator Allen T. Caperton's, who was an Erskine. W. H. Mc- 
Creery built one of the first brick houses erected in Hinton, now 
owned by the estate of Dr. Gooch. 



582 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



JOHN W. McCREERY. 

Among the lawyers who practiced their profession in the county 
from its very formation to the present from outside of the ter- 
ritory is Hon. John W. McCreery, of Beckley. He is the son of 
Hon. William McCreery, who lived for many years in that county, 
having emigrated thereto from Virginia with his sons. He is now 
about sixty-four years of age and one of the wealthiest men in this 
state. He started on the ground floor, but by judicious investment 
and business foresight he has accumulated a large fortune, esti- 
mated to be worth now $1,000,000, largely in real estate. His in- 
vestments were in wild lands in Raleigh County. When the devel- 
opments came in that region, Mr. McCreery's land appreciated very 
rapidly in value. He is the president of the Bank of Raleigh and 
of the Beckley Water Works & Lighting Company, and is iden- 
tified with many of the leading enterprises of this section, especially 
in Raleigh County, which he has been largely instrumental in 
developing. He is attorney for the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway 
Company ; has represented his district in the Senate of the State 
for two terms of four years each, and was president of that body. 
He has been prosecuting attorney of Raleigh County. He is a 
Democrat in politics and Presbyterian in religion. He takes great 
interest in those affairs for the betterment of his section. He has 
had one of the largest and most profitable law practices of any 
lawyer of this section of the State, which large clientelle is largely 
due to his careful attention to the interests of his clients, and is 
considered a faithful and conscientious counsellor. He first mar- 
ried a Miss Lacy, of Princeton, a stepdaughter of Dr. Isaiah Bee, 
in 1876. After her death he married a Miss Prince, a daugher of 
Edmund Prince, of Beckley. His son, Henry Lacy McCreery, 
also a lawyer of promise, died recently, aged thirty-two. Another 
son is a pharmacist. His daughter married D. Howe Johnson, a 
lawyer of Mercer County, a son of Judge David E. Johnson. 
Another daughter married Mr. Payne, the merchant of Beckley; 
another, Mr. Patterson, a lawyer and stenographer at Clarksburg. 
Mr. McCreery's close identification with the people of the county 
entitles him to some notice in these pages. In addition to those 
positions mentioned, he has been general receiver of the court of 
his county for many years, a commissioner of the United States 
Court, appointed by Judge Jackson and also by Judge Keller. He 
was very favorably spoken of as the candidate of the Democratic 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 583 



party for judge of the circuit court of this circuit in 1904, but 
declined to be a candidate. His practice extends throughout Ra- 
leigh and adjoining counties, in the Supreme Court of the State and 
in the United States Court. He is a brother of our county man, 
James T. McCreery. 

WYANT. 

The first settler of Powley's Creek was Peter . Wyant, who 
settled on the head of the creek. He left three sons, who settled 
in that region, around the Big Bend Tunnel — John, Elijah and 
Peter; and William, who was the youngest, and remained on the 
homestead of the ancestor, as it was the usual custom in the 
early days for the youngest son to remain at home to take care 
of his parents and inherit by devise or deed the "home place." 
William, the son of J. M., the third of the generation, still resides 
on the Powley's Creek homestead. Peter settled on top of Big 
Bend Tunnel Mountain, where he resided at his death. He left 
one daughter, who married Hon. J. Fred Briant, a train dispatcher 
of Hinton ; J. Morris, who owns and lives on the old John Rooch 
farm on Greenbrier River, below Bacon's Mill ; Charles, who re- 
sides where his father died, and Thomas, who lives on an adjoin- 
ing farm. Archie Allen also married another daughter. Elijah 
went through the war as a Confederate soldier. He did not be- 
lieve in secession, but did believe in obeying the laws of his State, 
and when the State seceded and demanded his service, he obeyed. 
He died several years ago, leaving a son, Peter M. Wyant, who 
lives on the Elk Knob, and married a daughter of C. Wran With- 
row, and is raising a family of seventeen children, eleven boys 
and six girls. Another son, John M., who married a daughter of 
Squire Joseph Grimmett ; a daughter, who married Louis M. Shiry, 
and another who married John B. Thompson, of Talcott. 

The Wyants are a very sturdy, honorable, law-abiding, Chris- 
tian people, and good citizens, who have retained the faith of their 
fathers. They are generally Methodists and Democrats, except 
John M., who has departed from the faith of his fathers to the 
extent of being an ardent Republican. 

One of the oldest settlers in the county was John Rooch, who 
married a sister of Andrew Gwinn, of Lowell. He owned the 
river bottom farm adjoining the Bacon Mill property, now owned 
by J. Morris Wyant. After the death of the original settlers his 



584 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



children, with the exception of the youngest son, John M. Rooch, 
moved West. John M. still lives on the Keeny's Knob, in Green 
Sulphur District, and is a farmer. 

Peter Wyant, the owner of the farm of that name, was from 
Rockingham County, Virginia, and a German. He settled on 
Powley's Greek in 1820, and married Sarah Meadows, a daughter 
of Elijah Meadows, and they reared five boys and four girls. The 
boys were Elijah, the oldest, who married Sallie Dick, of Cale's 
Mountain, a daughter of John Dick; John, who married Mary 
Meadows, a daughter of James Meadows; Peter, who married Isa- 
bel, a daughter of Matthew Lowe; William, who married Mary 
Hedrick, a daughter of Moses Hedrick; Ris, who married Clara 
Garten, a daughter of Thompson Garten. The daughters were 
Nancy, who married Archibald Cales ; Lucinda, who married 
James Meadows ; Ann, who married Irvin W T ilburn, and Sarah, 
who married John Persinger. Each of these children raised large 
families. John and James died during the Civil War. James was 
buried at the old Pisgah Church, and John near his farm. Two 
sons of Peter Wyant, Jr., still reside in Talcott District — Morris 
and Charles. 

Ben R. Boyd married a daughter of Peter Wyant, as did Hon. 
J. Fred Bryant, who is now train dispatcher for the C. & O. Ry. 
at Hinton. 

Peter Wyant, the farmer, lives on Elk Knob, one of the highest 
points in the county, on a farm of rich land on which blue grass 
grows spontaneously. It consists of 300 acres, and once belonged 
to Elias Wheeler, and where the last wolves in the county were 
killed. He is a son of Elijah Wyant and a grandson of the set- 
tler, and now sixty years old. 

All of the Wyants in this section of the country are descend- 
ants of Peter W)^ant, who died at the age of ninety-one years, 
on his farm on the head of Powley's Creek, which was later owned 
and lived on by his son William, and then by his grandson, James, 
and is now owned by Samuel Ballard. The father of Peter Wyant, 
the settler, was a native of Germany, and settled in the Valley of 
Virginia, in Rockingham County; was seven years in the Ameri- 
can Army during the Revolutionary War, and fought for the in- 
dependence of this country. John M. Wyant, a grandson of Peter 
Wyant, married a daughter of Joseph Grimmett, and is now re- 
siding on a portion of the old Joseph Grimmett home place, five 
miles east of Hinton, on the Avaters of Greenbrier River. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



585 



ROLLYSON. 

John Rollyson was an Englishman, emigrating from beyond 
the sea in his youth. He settled on Greenbrier River, opposite 
the west portal of the Big Bend Tunnel, which land he once 
owned. He left the following sons : James, Charles R., Joseph, 
John, Martin, Michael, William and Samuel, all of whom removed 
to Jackson County, West Virginia in their youth, except Charles 
R., who married a daughter of Charles Mathews, and James mar- 
ried a sister of Archie Caly, and settled and reared a family on the 
place of his father. Charles R. married a daughter of David Math- 
ews, the old settler of the bottom across the river from Talcott, 
and which came through her to him, and is now known as the 
Chattin place. He was a large land owner in that region. He died 
many years ago, leaving two sons, William and Charles S. Wil- 
liam died twenty years ago, leaving a widow and children, his 
wife being a daughter of A. J. Miller, a son of Brice Miller, who 
lived on the west side of Keeney's Knobs, near Lick Creek. Charles 
S. still resides on his half of the farm on the Big Bend, inherited 
by him from his father. 

Joseph settled in what is now known as Jumping Branch Dis- 
trict, then Mercer, and his descendants still reside there. James 
Rollyson left two boys, J. P., who lives on Stony Creek, in Monroe 
County, near the Summers line, and A. N., who removed to and 
lives in Fayette County. He also left five daughters — Sarah, who 
married first Garland Sims, and then after his death, Henry Gib- 
son; Matilda married Caleb Garten, whose descendants still live 
in Hungart's Creek country; Amanda married Charles Carson, 
who lives on Wolf Creek, now an aged man ; Emily married Hugh 
Meadows, of that numerous family, many of whose descendants live 
in the county at this day ; Elizabeth married Richard M. Woodrum, 
the Wiggins merchant and son of one of the early settlers, Arm- 
strong Woodrum, who died in recent years. 

HUFFMAN. 

Samuel Huffman, of Dutch descent, is a native of Roanoke 
County, Virginia. He was born the 16th day of August, 1827. He 
came to Monroe County when seven years of age. His father's 
name was Samuel. On the 8th of December, 1853, he married 
Sarah J. Allen, of Monroe County, a daughter of Jacob Allen, of 
near Greenville, and a sister of Nicholas N. Allen, one of the most 



586 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



substantial and well-to-do citizens of this county, and of J. H. 
Allen, the merchant. Mr. Huffman was in his younger day a stone- 
mason, but later devoted himself to farming. He purchased a good 
tract of land on Little Wolf Creek, where he now resides,, having 
reared his family thereon, which consisted of six children — Giles 
H., who died some three years ago; Leonidas S., a graduate of 
Concord Normal School, and a prominent minister of the M. E. 
Church, now located in Ohio, and who married Miss Lizzie Allen, a 
daughter of Nicholas N. Allen ; John Fletcher, one of the most 
prosperous farmers in the county, and two daughters, Rosa and 
Alice S. J., who married Wilber F. Allen and Jacob H. Allen, 
respectively. 

Mr. Huffman is one of the pioneers of Buck on Wolf Creek in 
this county; is a Republican, and not in any sense an office seeker. 
He has the full confidence of his party, and has been its nominee 
for delegate to the Legislature and for commissioner of the county 
court, and is a consistent Christian of the M. E. Church and a 
conscientious and just man. The other son of Samuel Huffman is 
Gaston Huffman, an enterprising citizen farmer of Wolf Creek, in 
Greenbrier District. 

GRANDISON CALLOWAY LANDCRAFT. 

Was one of the most prominent citizens in the county at the date 
of its foundation. He was born in Nelson County, Virginia in the 
year 1806. In 1838 he intermarried with Miss Emily Pack, a daugh- 
ter of Bartley Pack, and on the 12th day of June, 1891, he died at 
Landcraft's Ferry on New River, in Forest Hill District, of this 
county. His wife survived him several years, and their remains 
rest side by side in the old family graveyard on the farm formerly 
owned by him, on which Mr. Joseph N. Haynes now resides, and 
of which he is the owner. Mr. Haynes having intermarried with 
a niece of Mr. Landcraft's, Miss Emma McLaughlin, he leaving 
no children surviving him. For five years, between 1838 and 1843, 
he engaged in the mercantile business at Gauley Bridge, in Fay- 
ette County, and then moved to the Landcraft (Pack's) Ferry, 
where he resided until he died, at which place he named and se- 
cured the establishment of Pack's Ferry Post Office, of which he 
became the first postmaster, which position he retained until his 
death. There being no mail service, however, a part of the time 
during the war, the mail at the date of establishment of this office 
was carried on horseback over the Red Sulphur Turnpike, and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 587 

Pack's Ferry was the only post office between Red Sulphur and 
Jumping Branch. 

In politics before the war, and up to the date of the formation 
of the Republican party, he was an old-line Whig, but was opposed 
to slavery, and a strong Union man, and opposed to the secession 
of the South or the dissolution of the Union. After the war between 
the States he continued his allegience to the Republican party, and 
held the office of member of the Board of Supervisors of Monroe 
County, and in 1867 was appointed to make the re-assessment of 
the real estate of five counties of the State, including Webster, 
Nicholas and Braxton, and was complimented for the excellent 
execution of this work by the auditor. He was aided in the work 
of transcribing and making of the land books by J. Cary Woodson, 
now of Alderson, West Virginia, and Josephus B. Pack, late clerk 
of this county, and the father of our townsman, James P. Pack, 
the auditor saying: "It was the best set of books in the State." 

Mr. Landcraft was a man of strong convictions, a man of fine 
and studious habits, reading and forming his own opinions. He 
was noted for his kind treatment of the former slaves of which he 
had been an owner. When his father sold two, Ben and Milly, 
he purchased them, brought them to his home, and cared tenderly 
for them the balance of their lives. His house was a home for all 
his friends, and in fact his "latch string" was always on the outside. 

During the war it is related of him that he was arrested and 
taken to Union, on account of his Union principles, to which he 
stood firm and never wavered in the least. General A. A. Chap- 
man, General John Echols, and Senator Allen Caperton were his 
personal friends, recognizing the true and manly spirit, took him 
to their homes, and, through their influence, soon returned him 
home. He was noted for his fearlessness in upholding the doctrines 
deemed by him as right. As an example, when arrested by the 
Confederate scouts, he was cursed by one for his Unionism, who 
drew his gun and placed it at his breast. He, without flinching, 
told the man "to shoot," not moving a muscle or an inch. The 
captain saved his life by taking hold of the man with the gun. 

Mr. Landcraft gave his earnest support to the formation of 
Summers County, and it was through his influence that the ap- 
pointment of Josephus B. Pack was secured as the first clerk of 
the county court of this county, and also of the Board of Super- 
visors. He was a steadfast friend, of great individuality, as well 
as firmness of character, esteemed by all who knew him and re- 
spected by those who differed from him. He, after the war, had 



588 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



a long litigation over the Landcraft plantation. The suit went to 
the Supreme Court of Appeals, and is reported in one of the reports 
of that court. Mr. Landcraft had the distinction of being the oldest 
postmaster in point of service in the United States at the date of 
his death. He was the postmaster at Pack's Ferry office during all 
administrations. 

. A trust deed was executed on the land at Pack's Ferry on the 
7th of March, 1858, to secure a debt of $1,400.00 due the first day 
of September, 1862. The property was advertised for sale on the 
4th day of February, 1868, and an injunction sued out before N. 
Harrison, and perpetuated. The grounds were that the times were 
hard, great scarcity of money and general depression. The plain- 
tiff appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeals, which reversed the 
Circuit Court of Monroe County. 

See Second West Virginia Reports, page 540. 

Another suit was instituted by Mr. Landcraft concerning this 
same New River property, on the 13th of October, 1869, in the 
Circuit Court of Monroe County, which was decided by Nathaniel 
Harrison, judge, and which was decided in his favor, but it was 
appealed to the Supreme Court of Appeals, and decided at the 
January Term, 1870, and reversed. This was against George W. 
Hutchinson, Trustee, J. H. Alexander and Allen T. Caperton con- 
cerning a deed of trust executed to secure Alexander a certain debt. 

See West Virginia Reports, 4, page 312. 

The Kent and Watson lands, of about 80,000 acres, were partly 
in Pipestem District, generally known as the Kent and Watson 
lands. The owners were James R. Kent and James T. Watson. 
After the death of Watson, James Watson W r illiams was made 
administrator in New York, both owners being residents of that 
State. 

On the 15th day of Februar}^, 1844, an Act was passed by the 
General Assembly of Virginia authorizing said administrator to 
bring a suit for the appointment of a commissioner to collect the 
unpaid purchase money on lands sold, and to sell the unsold lands. 
In the Circuit Superior Court of Law and Chancery in Mercer 
County the said Kent and Williams filed their bill according to said 
act, and on April 30, 1844, and Samuel Pack was appointed com- 
missioner for the purposes aforesaid, who gave bond in the penalty 
of $5,000.00, with William G. Caperton, Reuben F. Watts and John 
McClaugherty as sureties. 

Pack died in 1848. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 589 



ALLEN. 

Nicholas N. Allen is now about seventy-eight years old, a native 
of Monroe, but removed to this county before its organization, and 
married Miss Susan Martin, of Lick Creek, a daughter of Shadrach 
Martin, and settled on the upper waters of Lick Creek. He had 
no start in the world except what he gave himself by his good 
sense and muscle. He cleared out an excellent farm, built an ex- 
cellent home, became a dealer in stock, and is as prosperous as 
any man in the county. In his later years he has practically retired 
from business — a plain man and an honorable one. His family 
consisted of three daughters ; one married Fred Bush, of Hinton, 
and another, Rev. L. S. Huffman, and Miss Alice first married 
W. W. Withrow, and after his death, a Mr. Foster; Jacob H., a 
merchant of Hinton, and Wilbur N., a farmer and capitalist. 

Nicholas N. Allen was born in 1828, and is the architect of his 
own success. He was a soldier in the Confederate Army, is a Pres- 
byterian and a Democrat. His father was Jacob Allen, who lived 
on the Indian Draft near Greenville, in Monroe County. Jacob 
Henderson Allen, who lived farther up Lick Creek, was a brother 
of Nicholas N. 

R. T. BALLANGEE. 

R. T. Ballangee bears the name of one of the first families of 
settlers in this county. He was born near where Talcott is now 
built, on June 21, 1853, and is a son of Eli Ballangee, who was a 
constable for several years, and an old and respected farmer citizen. 
Mr. Ballangee was elected constable, and took office January 1, 
1876, serving one term of four years. He has held the office of 
justice of the peace of Talcott District for two terms by election, 
eight years, elected, 1888 and 1892, and a part of one term by 
appointment; two years, 1886 to 1888. He is a farmer by occu- 
pation, intelligent, enlightened, progressive and an up-to-date 
farmer. He married Miss Sallie J., the daughter of George W. 
Chattin and M. C. Chattin, of Rollinsburg, in 1877, who is still 
living. They reside at Ballangee Post Office, about two miles and 
a half from Greenbrier Springs, which post office was established 
during the second Cleveland administration, in 1893, and was named 
for "Squire" Ballangee. His son, Homer Ballangee, who is now a 
justice of the peace, is an intelligent, well-educated young man, 



590 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



married Miss Kate Chattin, and lives at Talcott. "'Squire" Bal- 
langee, as he is always called, has four children, two daughters, 
who have married — one, Miss Bessie, Frank Dunn, and Miss Grace, 
who married W. B. Dunn ("Jack"), sons of C. L. Dunn, of Red 
Sulphur Springs, and Schuyler, unmarried, who reside at Ballangee 
Post Office. 

R. T. Ballangee is a direct descendant of the pioneer of that 
name who settled on the island at Hinton in Indian days. There 
are a number of the name still in the county, the older being 
Lorenzo and Lafayette. Evi, a son of George, died some six years 
ago near Hinton. 

The first Ballangee to settle in this territory was Isaac, who 
had three sons, Isaac, George and Henry. George inherited the 
land immediately below the mouth of Greenbrier; Henry patented 
the Hinton lands, and Isaac the lands on which the city of Hinton 
is built. Isaac Ballangee, the second, left Lafayette, who married 
a Pack ; Lorenzo, who married a Hicks ; Anderson, Richardson and 
Eli. George left two sons, Evi, who never married, and who died 
at the old George Ballangee house ; and John R., who settled near 
Clayton, at the foot of Keeney's Knob. His first wife was Rebecca 
Graham, a daughter of Joseph Graham, by whom he had two chil- 
dren, David Graham Ballangee and Mary. After her death he 
married a Miss Rookstool, by whom he raised three children, 
John, Franklin and Charley, and one daughter, Susan, who mar- 
ried Charles H. Graham. George Ballangee made a will, by which 
he devised the lands between the Hintons and the mouth of the 
Greenbrier to Evi and John R. Evi never married, and he and 
his sister lived in the old log house until their death. Interesting 
litigation grew out of the lands devised by George Ballangee for 
a partition of this land. 

Evi Ballangee was, in 1898, when alone in the house late at 
night, attacked by three robbers, who thought he had a large 
amount of money hidden on the premises. They entered his house 
and attacked him. He resisted, and a desperate fight took place. 
They knocked out his teeth, and left him covered with blood. They 
finally overcame him, bound him with cords and rendered him 
insensible. The desperadoes searched every nook of the house — 
into the garret and loft, but got no money, and Mr. Ballangee 
refused to tell them anything, except that he had no money. They 
would not believe him. They placed his feet to the fire and burned 
the soles of them into a blister. Finally they left, and he was 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 591 

helpless and unable to get loose until next day, when he reported 
to the authorities. A large reward was offered, and but one of the 
robbers was ever caught. His name was Crawford, and he was 
sent to the penitentiary for five years. 



FORD. 

Hon. Azel Ford is a native of western New York, reared on a 
farm and educated at the Genesey State Normal School, and fol- 
lowed the profession of teaching for some time in his native 
country. In 1878 he came to West Virginia, which has since been 
his home, and in the development of which he has enlisted and 
has aided materially. After Mr. Ford located in West Virginia 
he was engaged for several years as a civil engineer, and he became 
thoroughly familiar with the vast, undeveloped wealth of the lower 
end of the State in timber and coal, and acquired large interests 
in his own right, the prevailing prices then being moderate. After 
he had resided a few years in the State, having made his permanent 
abode in Raleigh County, he was nominated as a Democrat and 
elected to the House of Delegates, and was a member of that body 
during the session of 1889, when the contested election was de- 
termined between Hon. A. Brooks Flemming and General Nathan 
Goff for Governor, Mr. Ford voting with his party in favor of 
seating Judge Fleming, and his vote was understood to be the 
deciding vote. Later, Mr. Ford changed his political views from 
those of the Democratic party to those of the Republican policies ; 
was again nominated for House of Delegates by the Republican 
organization, and elected over Hon. I. C. Prince. This election 
was contested, but he was seated and held the office throughout the 
term. He always adhered to the policies when in the Democratic 
organization of Samuel J. Randall, and was known as a "Randall 
Democrat," believing in the policies of protection as proclaimed 
by that great statesman. After his death many of his followers 
transferred their political affections to the party of the protective 
tariff. Mr. Ford has not, since his last race for the Legislature, 
been a candidate for political office, but has devoted his time and 
energies to business. 

Mr. Ford was practically the founder of the Bank of Hinton, 
the oldest bank between Lewisburg and Charleston, and was at 
its organization elected its president, in 1889, and has continued in 
that position to the present date. This bank was first organized 



592 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



as a State bank by Mr. Ford, the late Edwin Prince, of Beckley; 
M. A. Riffe, the first cashier, of Hinton ; E. O. Prince, who was the 
second cashier, and Burke Prince, on a capitalization of $25,000.00. 
After several years of successful operation under the advice of Mr. 
Ford, when the United States banking iaws were amended and 
made more liberal, converted in 1900 into a national bank, and is 
the oldest national bank in this section of the country, Mr. Ford 
being retained as a member of the board of directors and president. 
The policy of the institution has been largely dictated by him, and 
while he has a greater part of the time been absent, his has been 
the master hand always guiding- its destinies, which have been 
successfully and wisely done. 

Mr. Ford resided at Beckley, Raleigh County, for a number of 
years, and owned a handsome residence property in that town. 
Later, he removed with his family to Hinton, and became a citizen 
of Summers County, and is now a citizen thereof, but spends the 
greater portion of his time in Washington, D. C, in which city 
he has established a home, but is still a citizen of this county. 

He is a business man ; began life at the bottom, and has made 
a success, and is conceded to be one of the wealthiest men 
of the State, and is yet comparatively a young man. He, with 
James Kay, the Scotch coal operator, with Frank and Letus 
Puckett, built the large brick flats on Temple Street, consisting of 
thirteen residences. His holdings in coal and timber lands on the 
west side of New River have been large, and from which he has 
acquired a large fortune. His good business foresight led him to 
take advantage of the development, and his holdings rapidly in- 
creased in value. He projected and was largely instrumental in 
the building of the narrow gauge iron rail steam road, from New 
River, at the mouth of Glade Creek, up that stream into the heart 
of the timber region of Raleigh County. 

Mr. Ford married Miss Ewart, daughter of Harvey Ewart, of 
Livingston County, New York State. Their children are Misses 
Grace and Anna, who united in marriage with Frank and Melitus 
Puckett, prominent and successful business men of Hinton. Miss 
Rosa is at school in a Washington college for ladies, and Harvey 
is a young business man, engaged and interested in business with 
his father. 

Mr. Ford is one of the largest realty owners in the county, and 
has materially aided in the development of the city in past years, 
but of recent years his energies have been spent in other directions. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 593 



ANN BAILEY. 

The history of this noted pioneer woman is tradition largely, 
but enough is known to make it pretty correct history. The story 
of her life is connected principally with the history of the New 
River and Kanawha Valley. 

In the year 1891, when Hon. Virgil Lewis, the West Virginia 
historian, wrote of this locally noted woman pioneer, there were 
still people then living who had known her and conversed with 
her, among them Colonel Charles B. Wagner, of Point Pleasant; 
Mrs. Mary McCullough, of Mason County; Mrs. Mary Irons and 
Mrs. Phoebe Willy, of Gallia County, Ohio, extremely old persons 
seventeen years ago. The two latter were granddaughters of Ann 
Bailey; also John Slack, Sr., and J. H. Goshorn, of Charleston, 
We.st Virginia. 

Ann Bailey's name was Hennis. She was a native of Liverpool, 
England. The exact date of her birth is not known with absolute 
verity. It has been claimed that she lived to the age of 125 years. 
This is no doubt a mistake, but that she did live to a very old age 
there is no doubt. Her father was a soldier in Queen Ann's war, 
and served on the continent of Europe under the Duke of Marl- 
borough at Blenheim. She was named after Queen Ann. She had 
visited London in her childhood, then five years old. She witnessed 
the execution of Lord Lovat, convicted of high treason. From this 
event the date of her birth is fixed at 1742, as approximately correct, 
Lovat having been beheaded April 9, 1747. 

She came to Virginia in 1761. Various traditions exist as to 
the manner of her coming. Some stories printed state that at the 
age of nineteen years she was kidnaped and carried aAvay while on 
her way to school with her books, brought beyond the sea, landed 
on the James River in Virginia, where sold to defray the cost of her 
voyage. Others claim she was married to Richard Trotter, and 
with him sought a home in the Virginia settlement, and because 
of their extreme poverty, was "sold out" to pay costs of passage, 
as was the custom in those days, and that they were bought by a 
gentleman by the name of Bell, residing at Staunton, Virginia, and 
after their term of service became settlers of Augusta. The facts 
seem to be that, when her parents died, she was left a penniless 
orphan of youthful years, alone in the great city of Liverpool. In 
her extremity she thought of some friends or relatives who had 
gone beyond the Atlantic Ocean and settled in the colony of Vir- 



594 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ginia, and she determined to follow them, and went on shipboard 
and sailed. In time she reached the Virginia Capes, sailed up the 
James River ; then she undertook the passage through the wilder- 
ness overland to Augusta County, passing the Blue Ridge. At 
the age of nineteen she arrived at the home of the Bells in that 
county, where Staunton now stands. Soon after her arrival she 
became acquainted with' Richard Trotter, a brave frontiersman, fell 
in love with him and married him. He was one of the youthful 
soldiers of Braddock's Army; was at Bradock's Defeat." Trotter 
escaped with his life, and later he married Ann Hennis. Her 
maiden name was Hennis. She was fair, Trotter was brave. "None 
but the brave deserve the fair." They were married in 1765. A 
little cabin was reared by their joint industry in a voiceless wil- 
derness. Their first child, William, was born in 1767. Pressing 
westward, a few frontiersmen had located on Muddy Creek in the 
Greenbrier Valley. This infant settlement survived but a short 
time, perishing by the hand of the barbarians. Dunsmore's War 
came on. Richard Trotter's wife was one of the bravest who 
encouraged the whites to break the savage power and save the 
mothers and children from the savage tomahawk and knife. 

Richard Trotter joined Lewis' Army that proceeded from Camp 
Union (Lewisburg) to Point Pleasant, and aided in fighting the 
most hotly contested battle ever fought on the American continent 
between the white men and the Indians. He was one of the slain, 
leaving Ann a widow, who watched and waited in her humble home 
for his return, but he never came. He died in aiding to plant white 
civilization on the Ohio. Married to Trotter at the age of twenty- 
three, she was a widow at the age of thirty-two, and so remained 
for eleven years. She resolved to avenge her husband's death when 
she finally learned of his dismal fate. It was not a visionary dream. 
It was an outburst of patriotism and heroism. The Revolutionary 
War was now at hand. She found a duty to perform, and tradition 
tells how well she performed it. Her neighbor was a Mrs. Moses 
Mann, and some of her family were victims of the Indian savages. 
She tendered a home to the boy of Ann of seven, made an orphan by 
the Indian bullet at Point Pleasant, and Ann Trotter entered on her 
unparalleled career, which has no equal in Virginia history. She 
clad herself in the costume of the border. She joined the re- 
cruiting stations, where she urged enlistments with great earnest- 
ness and heroism. Her appeals were first on behalf of the de- 
fenseless women and children on the border, and when these were 
not in immediate danger, she was urging the men to enlist in the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



595 



Continental establishments and strike for freedom against her 
native land. 

She was clad in buckskin trousers, with a petticoat, heavy bro- 
gan shoes, a man's coat and hat, a belt about the waist with a 
hunting knife attached, and with a rifle on her shoulder. In this 
garb 'she passed from one recruiting station to another, from one 
muster to another, appealing to the patriotism of all she met. The 
whole border, from the Potomac to the Roanoke, was her field. 
Long before the close of the Revolution the name of Ann Trotter 
was famous in all quarters, and her virtue and patriotism, as well 
as her heroism, were sung by all who knew her or knew of her. 

After the Revolution a continued struggle waged, and for long 
years Ann Trotter redoubled her energies, if it were possible for 
human to do so; and, on foot and on horseback, she bore messages 
and dispatches from the eastern settlements to the remotest fron- 
tiers, among them Fort Fincastle on the Jackson River, Fort 
Edwards on the Warm Springs Mountain, Fort London, now Win- 
chester, Fort Savanna, now Lewisburg, in Greenbrier County, then 
the most western outpost of civilization in 1778," on the southwest- 
ern frontier of Virginia, with the exception of Fort Ranolph at 
Point Pleasant. She bore messages between Staunton and Lewis- 
burg and Point Pleasant on the Ohio. The inhabitants awaited 
her coming with anxiety. It was 160 miles from Point Pleasant 
to Lewisburg on the route the army of Lewis marched in 1774. 
She traveled the lonely defiles of the Alleghenies, crossed the Sew- 
ell Mountains, the Gauley and the Elk Rivers and other streams. 
She traversed this region and the valley of the Kanawha, which 
became the scene of many an adventure by her. 

John Bailey was a brave scout. She met him. He was worthy 
of her admiration and devotion. They were married on the 3d 
of November, 1785, by Rev. John McCue, the first Presbyterian 
minister west of the Alleghenies. She was then forty-three years 
of age. Thus, Ann Trotter, the heroine of the Shenandoah, became 
Ann Bailey, the heroine of the Kanawha. The marriage record 
is in Record No. 1, page 7, in the office of the county clerk of 
Greenbrier County. 

When Charleston was founded as Fort Clendenin, John Bailey 
became the commandant with his bride, the now famous Ann. 
Here she entered upon a career of unsurpassed daring and adven- 
ture. Her skill with the rifle was great. Her dexterity as an 
equestrienne was wonderful. Her care for the sick and helpless 
challenged the admiration of all. Often she left the fort and rode 



596 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



into the wilderness, carried messages to Point Pleasant, sixty miles, 
to Lewisburg, to Staunton and other settlements. She carried the 
letter of Daniel Boone, who was then lieutenant colonel of Kana- 
wha County, to Governor Henry Lee, regarding the military es- 
tablishment of the county, which is characteristic. He wrote : 

"For Kanawha Co. 68 Privits ; men and captain at Pint plesent 
17 men; John Morris Juner; Insine at the Bote yards 17 men; 
Two spyes or scutes Will be Necessry at the pint to sarch the 
Banks of the River at the crossing places. More would be want- 
ing if the could be aloude. Those spyes Must be Compoused of 
the inhabitants who Well Know the Woods and Waters from the 
pint to belleville 60 miles— No inhabitance ; also from the pint to 
Elke 60 miles — No inhabitence; from Elke to the Bote Yards 20 
miles, all inhabited." 

Thus, in 1791, we are informed there were no white inhabi- 
tants in all the Kanawha Valley, and no idea of a fixed habitation. 
- And ever afterwards, mounted on her famous horse, "Liverpool," 
she ranged all over the land, from Point Pleasant to Staunton. 

"NeA^er," says Professor Lewis, "under the impenetrable coat 
of mail of a Crusader beat a heart actuated by greater heroism and 
ardent love for humanity than that which throbbed within the 
bosom of Ann Bailey. She boldly sallied into the wilderness as 
if to challange the ferocity of wild beasts and the vengeance of 
savage men. Day and night she continued on her journeys, and 
slept in the wilderness, with only her faithful horse tied near as 
her sole companion." 

On another occasion she journeyed from Charleston to Lewis- 
burg. She slept in a hollow tree, and tied her horse so that he 
constantly blew his breath on her, and thus aided in saving her 
from freezing. She frequently slept in a cave at the mouth of 
Thirteen Mile Creek, known to this day as "Ann Bailey's Cave." 
This cave was destroyed by stonemasons in recent years, by blast- 
ing out the rock, in the absence of the owner, Dr. Forbes, of lower 
Kanawha County. 

On one trip from Point Pleasant to Charleston she was dis- 
covered, where Winifred now stands, by a band of savages, who 
gave chase. 

It was Ann Bailey who volunteered to go from Fort Clendennin, 
Charleston, to Lewisburg and secure the necessary supply of 
powder for that fort, which was besieged by the Indians, and the 
supply had been exhausted. It was a trip through a trackless wil- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 597 

derness, beset with savage foes and wild beasts. The fort was 
surrounded by savage Indians. All the men in the fort refused 
to undertake the perilous and dangerous passage. She bestrode 
the fleetest horse. The commander aided her to mount. The gate 
of the fort opened, and she disappeared in the forest. She passed 
Kanawha Falls, Gauley, Hawk's Nest, the Sewell Mountains, the 
Greenbrier Hills, and finally the fort, where Lewisburg now stands, 
was reached. She immediately secured a supply of powder. She 
refused a return guard, but with two horses, one she rode, and the 
other lead, loaded with the precious burden of powder, she reached 
Fort Lee exhausted, having made successfully the most daring 
feat in the history of the West. The next morning the garrison 
sallied from the fort with plentiful supplies, and, after a fierce 
fight, drove off the besieging savages and saved the people of the 
fort, where the Capitol now stands, from certain butchery. She 
was then forty-nine years old. 

This ride has been preserved in song. Charles Rabb, of the 
U. S. A., while encamped at Gauley Bridge in 1861, wrote "Ann 
Bailey's Ride; a Legend of the Kanawha." She was voted as a 
reward for her noble service the noble horse she rode on this ride. 
His name was "Liverpool." 

John Bailey, the second husband of Ann, died about 1802 in the 
vicinity of Charleston. 

Prominent among the people with whom Ann Bailey associated 
was Captain William Arbuckle, born at Balcony Falls, Virginia, 
on the James, ancestor of Hon. John W. Arbuckle, attorney and 
citizen of Greenbrier County. He was as great as Dajiiel Boone 
or Simon Kenton. He was among the first to enroll with General 
Lewis for the Point Pleasant campaign. Another was Jesse Van- 
bibber, one of the first settlers on the Greenbrier near Lowell. Then 
westward he went, and we find Vanbibber Rock at the Kanawha 
Falls, and Vanbibber hollows and licks in Green Sulphur District 
of Summers County. 

After the treaty of 1795, which ended the Indian depredations 
in all the New, Kanawha and Ohio Valleys, Ann Bailey spent her 
days in the Kanawha and Ohio Valleys, especially in the region of 
Point Pleasant and Gallipolis. After the famous ride from Fort 
Lee to Lewisburg she appears to have lost all. 

On the trip she was about to be overtaken. She abandoned her 
horse and disappeared and escaped in the underbrush in a hollow 
sycamore log. The Indians made a careful search, halted and rested 
on the log, finally departing, taking her horse. Later she came out 



598 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and followed the trail. Coming up with their encampment, she waited 
for the cover of darkness, and, while they slept, she stole up, and, 
untying her horse, "Liverpool," she sprang on his back, and when 
a short distance she gave a scream, and rode rapidly to Charleston 
in safety. So often did she baffle the Indians in this respect that 
they came to the belief she bore a charmed life. The Shawnee 
women knew her as the "White Squaw of the Kanawha." They, 
on account of her recklessness, came to the conclusion she was 
insane, and regarded her as the "phantom rider," which appeared 
here, there and everywhere on their paths, and thus for many years 
she was conspicuous. 

She would carry supplies from one fort to another, from Gal- 
lipolis to Staunton. Frequently her horse was so heavily laden that 
she would walk and lead him. She would bring coffee for one, 
drugs for another, powder for another, farming utensils for an- 
other, etc. She did an original express business. Outdaring Alvin, 
Adams and William Hernden and Ephraim Famesworth by half a 
century. If it was hogs or cattle that she wanted, she would drive 
them through if she had to go to the banks of the Shenandoah for 
them, and it is tradition that she first introduced tame geese into 
the New River Valley, as well as the Kanawha. In compliance 
with an agreement for tame geese, she drove twenty 150 miles for 
Captain William Clenendin. One died by the way. She put its 
dead carcass in a bag, and delivered nineteen alive and one dead, 
keeping the contract to the letter to deliver twenty, geese. 

It is tradition that she drank and was profane. Professor Lewis 
denies this? After a careful study and research, and conversing 
with aged people, he asserts that she was not profane or addicted 
to the use of strong drink. She did not belong to any church. She 
observed the Sabbath. She was known to pray. "What more was 
wanted?" says Professor Lewis. Heroism, virtue, mercy, benevo- 
lence, observance of the Sabbath, dependence on Providence, which 
protected her through an eventful career, all blended to make up 
her character, the pioneer heroine of the Kanawha Valley. 

She had a son, William, who grew to be an old man. She 
made her last visit to Charleston in the summer of 1817. She walked 
some seventy-five miles, then seventy-five years old. Jacob Warth 
says he met her six miles from Charleston, walking towards that 
place in 1817. This was some ninety years ago. She was clad in 
border costume. 

It was her son William (Trotter) whom she had left with Mrs. 
Moses .Mann in Augusta County, as heretofore set forth, at the 




OLD TOMBSTONE 



Standing in Old Swope (Swob) Burial Ground on 
Big Wolf Creek. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 599 



age of seven, that married Ann Cooper, of Kanawha. He took her 
in a canoe to Gallipolis, and was the first Virginian married in 
that old French town. He was a practical business man, was Wil- 
liam Trotter. In 1814 he bought 240 acres of land on the Kanawha 
for $1,275, three miles from the mouth of the Kanawha. This was 
a part of the Washington survey, 10,900 acres, made for himself 
in October, 1770. He resided on this land for three years, his 
mother residing with him. Selling this land for $1,400, he passed 
the Ohio into Gallia County, where he repurchased. 

One of the most famous of the "rides" of Ann Bailey was down 
the New River, from the Southwest Virginia region to the Kanawha, 
by which she passed through the territory of Summers County, long 
after the farm road had been hewn through the wilderness connect- 
ing Charleston, Lewisburg and Staunton, which was done largely 
by taxes paid in road labor by authority of the General Assembly 
of Virginia, at the suggestion of Captain John Stuart, the Green- 
brier clerk and historian. The New River Valley remained a howl- 
ing wilderness, with only the trails of the savage for highways. 
The rough country, cliffs, mountains, rivers and gorges, rendered 
the wilderness almost impassable, especially for a horsewoman, 
however accustomed she may have been. This region was, how- 
ever, traversed by this dauntless woman. She came down New 
River from towards the Narrows. Her direct route is unknown 
now, but it is possible she came by the mouth of the Greenbrier, 
turned off from the river, passing overland through Raleigh and 
Fayette, and striking the Greenbrier trail at the falls of the Kana- 
wha, one and a half miles below the mouth of Gauley, where the 
New and Gauley waters mingle and form the Great Kanawha. It 
is also likely that she traversed practically the same trail east from 
the Charleston settlement. Her mission was, as usual, one of 
mercy to the settlers in West Virginia. As to the details of these 
trips and missions, tradition does not supply. She was known as 
"Mad Ann Bailey, but she was never non compos mentis, but was 
evidently always a woman of good sense. She was ever op- 
posed to the removal of her son north of the Ohio. She had spent 
fifty-seven years in Virginia. Her companions in peace and in war 
were in that commonwealth. The mortal remains of her husbands 
were buried in its soil, and, therefore, at the age of seventy-six, 
it seemed hard to be severed and take up an abode among strangers. 
Her son appealed to her, and finally prevailed on her to go, and 
just overlooking the town of Gallipolis she built with her own hands 
a rude habitation. It consisted of a pen of fence rails. She remained 



600 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



there but a short time. Her son and friends came and prevailed on 
her to go to his home, where she consented to remain, provided he 
would build her a house near his own — a cabin in which she could 
dwell alone. This he did, where she dwelt the remainder of her 
days. For years she was a familiar figure on the streets of Gal- 
lipolis. Usually she walked the entire distance, and frequently 
came in a canoe, which she managed with Indian dexterity. On 
the streets she carried her rifle. 

With increasing age came many increasing eccentricities, and 
she was known as "Mad Ann," but none ever dared to call her that 
name in her presence. 

When spoken to concerning the correctness about her ability to 
shoot- with her rifle, she would relate in the broadest English how 
she once sat on the back of her horse, "Liverpool," and shot a "hawk 
on a helm tree across the mouth of the Helk." 

She died on the 22d of November, 1825, and she lies buried in 
the "Trotter graveyard," in an unmarked and nameless grave. She 
left a long line of descendants scattered West and South, number- 
ing several hundred. 

[Note. — The facts of the history of Ann Bailey are largely se- 
cured through the courtesy of Professor Virgil A. Lewis, of Point 
Pleasant, West Virginia. He has made careful research into the his- 
tory, life and traditions of this noted woman, and has reduced the 
result of his labor into her biography published by him several 
years ago, a copy of which he kindly provided me, and from which 
I have quoted liberally, with his permission. — J. H. M.] 

STORY OF ABE. 

Abe was an old colored man, who had been held in slavery by 
John Miller, Sr., and his ancestors, the first settler on Lick Creek, 
on the part where the three forks, Slater's, Flag Fork and Lick 
Creek come together, having been inherited by John Miller from his 
father, Patrick Miller, and brought as a slave from Bath County, 
Virginia, when John Miller, Sr., came from that county and settled 
on Lick Creek, born more than 100 years ago. He was as black as 
the ace of spades, with a nose something like the shape of a chick- 
en's gizzard, very fond of hunting and watching the deer licks at 
night, of which there were a number in the neighborhood, there 
being one, the most famous in modern times, up the hollow on the 
side of Keeney's Mountain, above where Eli Taylor settled in the 
mouth of Vanbibber Hollow. From whom or how this hollow took 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 601 



its name, we are unable to ascertain, but we believe the original name 
was Vanvibber, and named after the settler at Lowell, who after- 
wards emigrated to Kanawha Falls. Many deer have been killed 
in my boyhood days at this lick. There was one in Ellis' Hollow, 
just below the Harrison Williams house, where Mr. Wood now 
lives, and one further down at the Gum Lick Spring. 

Before the war Abe, who was never known by any other name— 
and there is no tradition that he ever had any other — and his wife, 
Sarah, and Minta, two colored women, were made free and per- 
mitted to do as they pleased, Abe being given a place to live in up 
in the Ellis' Hollow, where he built a cabin, but w r ould not permit 
any floor to be constructed except a dirt floor. He cleared out a 
patch and lived there until his wife died, when he was taken to the 
homestead to be cared for. On one occasion he had been out hunt- 
ing over the mountains all day, without success, wearing moccasins, 
a kind of footgear made out of dressed deer skins fastened over the 
foot and around the ankle by thongs, without heels and without 
soles to the bottom, being all of one piece. The old darkey landed 
in his cabin late, which was practically in the woods, and was soon 
overtaken by L. M. Alderson, who was known all over that region 
of the country as "Mims," the father of James W. Alderson and 
Peter L. Alderson and Mrs. Henry Shepherd, who was on that day 
also on a hunt. Finally, on finding a trail which he took to be the 
tracks of a bear, the mountains then being still infested with those 
animals, after following it for a long distance late in the evening, 
the trail led into Abe's cabin. It was "Uncle" Abe with his moc- 
casins making the tracks instead of a bear. Uncle Abe and the 
other two colored folks, which were all the colored people for miles 
around, except Phoebe, an old negress of Robert Miller's, who lived 
at the Thomas A. George place, and the slaves owned by E. J. 
Gwinn at Green Sulphur, died about the breaking out of the war, 
and were buried in the old Miller graveyard on Lick Creek. 

Abe used in his hunting expeditions and lick watching an old 
flint-lock Revolutionary musket and flint-lock rifle. The musket 
had been used in the Revolutionary War, was about six feet in 
length and had a bayonet attachment, and it is a great curiosity, 
and is now in the possession of the writer. With these guns he 
was very successful, he having with the rifle on one occasion, and 
with one shot, killed two wild geese flying high in the air in their 
yearly migration; and on another occasion, when sent out in the 
field to kill a mutton, he took such good aim with his rifle as to 
kill two with one shot. On another occasion, when watching the 



602 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



lick on Flag Fork below Williams' house with the old musket, he 
killed two fine deer with one shot, being located on a scaffold built 
up in the forks of a sapling, so that the deer could not scent him 
from afar. 

These old colored people unknown to fame deserve to be re- 
membered for their faithfulness to their masters and their children 
and to history, as having assisted in making the "forests bloom as 
the rose," and preparing the way for a modern civilization and habi- 
tation, and they were faithful and worked without money and with- 
out price in slavery and out of it. They attended the "musters" 
and sold ginger cakes and cider once a month, and all profits were 
their- own. 

LEWIS' WIT. 

Lewis was the name of a slave owned by Ephraim J. Gwinn at 
Green Sulphur Springs before the war. One day when going to 
mill he was met by "Devil Sam" McClung, of the Big Meadows. 
Mr. McClung spoke to Lewis with the usual "good morning" greet- 
ing, which was returned. Mc McClung remarked, "Lewis, I don't 
believe you know me; you don't remember me, Lewis," and Lewis 
replied, "Oh, yessah, I remembahs you. I read about you in the 
third chapter of the Pilgrim's Progress, sah." 

Peter Maddy, at the beginning of the war, also owned two 
slaves, Cale and Gus, on Lick Creek, who abandoned him when 
the war came on. Captain Robert Gore also owned some negroes 
in the upper end of the county. The Packs, Grahams and Fowlers 
were the only other slave-owners at the beginning of the war. 

JAMES THOMPSON. 

James Thompson resided on Lick Creek, in Pipestem District, 
at the breaking out of the war. He was a man of tremendous size, 
being a powerful and muscular man physically, and was a captain 
in the Confederate Army. He was married, having a family of 
boys and girls. He was an ardent secessionist, and sought to serve 
out A^engeance against those of opposite views in those stirring 
times. Parkinson Pennington was a Union advocate, and he and 
Thompson had had some personal differences. Thompson, after 
the declaration of hostilities, had Pennington arrested, calling to 
his aid some of his neighbors, and some of his own family and 
connections, and after walking a few miles they determined to dis- 
pose of Pennington without process of law, and proceeded to court- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 603 



martial (drumhead) and to hang him by the neck to a dogwood 
bush until he was dead. This occurred about four miles east of 
Athens, in Mercer County, then known as Concord Church. The 
rope used was a piece of hickory bark, taken from a sprout cut on 
the roadside. 

From this execution of Pennington in the early days of the 
Rebellion until after the close of the war, Captain Thompson kept 
himself heavily armed, and especially so at his own home, where, 
he could possibly have resisted an attack by his enemies against 
great odds. Immediately on the close of the war, in 1865, Mr. 
Thompson was advised by his neighbors and friends to leave the 
country to avoid a suspected attack by the enemy, until the ex- 
citement of war and the killing of Pennington had subsided; but 
Thompson, being a brave and fearless man, would not listen to 
these pleadings and advice, but prepared himself for war, posting 
pickets on his own farm at such points as seemed necessary for 
them to observe the approaching enemy. This continued for a 
short while and up to the time of his death. These guards for some 
cause were removed one day, and the approach of some thirty 
armed men, consisting partly of those attached to the Union cause 
and partly of men who had just emerged from their hiding places 
at the closing of hostilities, not being observed until they were on 
the premises, advanced to his house and surrounded it. Thomp- 
son being at his stable at the time, was called by his daughter, 
Mrs. McCorkle, now Mrs. Charles Clark, and secured his weapons 
to defend himself; but was implored by his good wife and daughter 
not to shoot or fight, but to make his escape by running away. 
Thompson, at his wife's request, dropped his gun, and started to 
make his escape, running down the lines of his enemies with his 
daughter, Mrs. McCorkle, at his side, and as near as possible for 
her to be to screen her father from bullets, even if it resulted in 
the taking of them into her own body. It was a long run and 
through cleared land; Thompson's house being set in the midst of 
a considerable clearing. He had succeeded, however, in getting 
through the first line of guards and apparently out of danger, when 
he ran upon a mere youth who was posted behind a tree, and who 
fired point blank into the body of Captain Thompson the fatal 
shot which killed him instantly. This occurred in the month of 
May, 1865. 

Thus ended the life of a man who was noted for his kindness 
to the poor and needy, who never left his mansion hungry or un- 
clothed. Unfortunately, no doubt, his aggressiveness in the cause 



604 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of the South led him to make a mistake which cost him his life 
in the end. His widow lived for several years afterwards in the 
same neighborhood. 

Captain Thompson was the father of Joseph Thompson, who 
still resides on Lick Creek — the father of Mrs. Mary McCorkle, 
who some years after the death of her first husband married 
Charles Clark, and they still reside in the neighborhood, on a part 
of the old Thompson plantation. Mrs. McCorkle is the mother 
of John McCorkle, who graduated at the Virginia Military Insti- 
tute, and is noted for his Western travels, having been a soldier 
in the Philippine Islands recently. Her other son, James Mc- 
Corkle, died in the city of Hinton a few years ago, leaving a 
widow and one son, the widow afterwards intermarrying with 
Sam G. McCulloch, of the city of Hinton, and the son is now 
a prosperous jeweler of the same town. Mrs. McCorkle was the 
aunt of Mrs. Nannie McLaughlin, a daughter of Charles Clark; 
Mrs. A. T. Maupin and Mr. Charles A. Clark, now in the West, 
and Mrs. Lucy Wise, of Hinton. 

MATTHEW A. MANNING. 

Hon. M. A. Manning died at his home in Talcott, this county, 
of heart disease, on December 13, 1900. Mr. Manning was born 
May 4, 1848, in Elkin, Roscommon County, Ireland. He emi- 
grated to this country with his parents when he was four years 
old, through the influence of Colonel Oliver Beirn and Patrick 
Beirn, who were distant relatives. His family located first in 
Monroe County, but afterwards removed to Nicholas County, 
where he resided until the breaking out of the late war, in which 
Mr. Manning enlisted on the Confederate side, although only a 
boy of eighteen years. He was a brave Confederate soldier. 
About 1871 Mr. Manning removed to Talcott, during the build- 
ing of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, engaging there in the 
mercantile business with the late T. F. Park, a cousin, under the 
firm name of Park & Manning, and at that place he resided un- 
til the date of his death, having married Miss Mary R. Campbell, 
of this county. He left surviving him two children, Frank A. 
and Miss Faye, and two brothers, James W. Manning, of Talcott, 
and Dennis G. Manning, of Indiana. 

Mr. Manning was an enterprising and useful citizen, and his 
death was a great loss to his county, and especially to his imme- 
diate neighborhood. He had filled many positions of honor, and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 605 

was an active and earnest Democrat in politics, and took a great 
interest in political affairs. He had been chairman of the County 
Executive Committee and a member of the same through many 
successive campaigns. He was also chairman of the Senatorial 
Democratic Committee for many years, and was a member of 
that Committee at the time of his death. He was elected a jus- 
tice of the peace under the old Constitution, in which the justices 
composed the county court, and was a member of that body 
when the new Constitutional Amendments were adopted, and was 
again elected justice of the peace after the adoption of the new 
Constitution. He had held the position of postmaster at Talcott 
for a number of years. Under the first Cleveland administration 
he was chief of division in the Pension Department for four years. 
He also received another appointment under the civil service dur- 
ing the second Cleveland administration, but declined the appoint- 
ment, and never performed any services thereunder. He was pri- 
vate secretary to Senator Frank Hereford during a large part of 
his Senatorial career ; was secretary of the Board of Education 
of Talcott District for a number of years, and was a member of 
the commission appointed by the circuit court to settle the dis- 
puted county line between Summers and Monroe. He was a law- 
yer by profession, and actively engaged in the practice up to the 
date of his death, having been in his office late the night before 
attending to legal matters. Everybody knew Mr. Manning, of 
Talcott. 

He was a man of fine intellect and a magnificent fighter, a 
true friend and useful citizen, and generous towards his enemies. 

He was a Master Mason in good standing, and his funeral was 
taken charge of by the Masonic fraternity. He was a devout be- 
liever in the doctrines of the Catholic Church and well versed 
therein. His remains were laid to rest with Masonic honors in 
the cemetery of the village overlooking the beautiful Greenbrier, 
where he had spent such a large portion of his useful life in the 
midst of the people with whom he lived so long, and for whom 
he had always stood. The largest concourse of people ever at- 
tending a funeral at that town was present, attesting the univer- 
sal regard and esteem of the deceased in that community. He 
had been a friend of the writer's from the time he came to the 
county, and they had worked side by side in many an earnest 
political campaign, and he knew him as well as any one living, 
and it is a pleasure to pay some tribute to the memory of a 
friend of his character who has gone before. 



606 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ALBERT SYDNEY JOHNSTON. 

While the subject of this sketch is not a resident or citizen 
of this county, being of the good county of Monroe, from which 
a portion of our country was formed, and having during his early 
and mature manhood been closely identified with our interests, 
engaged in the publication of a county newspaper largely circu- 
lated within our territory, and his influence having always been 
for the best interests and advancement of the best social, intel- 
lectual and higher manhood, we take the liberty of giving him a 
passing notice in these sketches. 

Albert Sydney Johnston is native of the old Commonwealth, 
near Warrenton, in the county of Fauquier, and was born on April 
2, 1862, being the oldest child of Charles McLean Johnston and 
Virginia Lee Johnston, his wife. He attended the local schools 
of Virginia and in the city of Washington, D. C. 

In 1876 his father with his family removed to Union, the 
county seat of Monroe County, West Virginia, becoming the 
owner and editor of the "Border Watchman," a Democratic news- 
paper then published in that town. His father died in 1880, and 
on his death his son, Albert Sydney, took entire charge of the 
newspaper plant and establishment, being then only eighteen 
years of age. He became at this early age the proprietor, printer, 
publisher and editor, and from that day to the present he has ful- 
filled those duties faithfully, honorably and with an eminent de- 
gree of intelligence. Shortly after assuming control of the estab- 
lishment he changed the name of the paper to "The Monroe 
Watchman." It is one of the clean, strong, intelligent and force- 
ful newspapers of the State, and one of the ablest edited papers 
in the country. 

Mr. Johnston is in politics an ardent Democrat, and a fol- 
lower of Bryan. His political editorials are clear, clean and 
strong, clearly defining his position on all subjects; utterly fear- 
less ; never cringing to the grafter nor submitting to the boss, and 
never hesitating to denounce the wrongful politics of his own party 
or of its individual members when occasion demands it. By rea- 
son of the fearlessness of his advocacy and the genuineness of 
his logic his paper has obtained a standing and an influence en- 
viable in the newspaper field. 

Mr. Johnston, while a partisan and in some respects a poli- 
tician, has not been of the office-seeking class, having refused fre- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 607 



quently the calls and demands of his party friends to become a 
candidate. In 1890, however, he was the nominee of his party 
for House of Delegates, and was elected by a flattering majority, 
at a time when the county was close. In 1892 he was again the 
nominee of his party and was again elected, and refused afterwards 
to again become a candidate. He was during the second Cleve- 
land administration tendered an appointment to an office under 
the administration, as a recognition of his intelligent and patri- 
otic services rendered his party. 

He is a leader and not a follower — a maker of public opinion. 
When Albert Sydney Johnston advocates a measure, he does so 
in no uncertain manner, but not until he is satisfied of the cor- 
rectness of his position. He is a man of honorable character and 
instincts, and has the confidence of those of the opposite party, 
there being among many of his admirers and personal friends 
those of an opposite political faith. For a quarter of a century 
he has been thoroughly identified with all the enterprises of a 
public character advanced for the betterment of his county. 

As a legislator, he advocated those measures beneficial to the 
great masses, known in those days as the common people, and 
was one of the Democratic "people"' on that side of the House. 
In the memorable session of 1898-9, Mr. Johnston was selected by 
the party leaders to edit and conduct the Charleston "Gazette" 
newspaper, and was active in the councils of that party at the 
capital. 

Mr. Johnston is one of the self-made men of the State, and 
has made his mark, and will leave the impress of his manly char- 
acter for generations to come. 

In 1894 he married Miss Izzie McNeer, of Union, a daughter 
of the late James W. McNeer, a son of Major A. A. McNeer, and 
whose mother was Mary Ann Miller, a daughter of John Miller, 
Sr., her mother being a daughter of the late E. M. Brown, one 
of the old-time merchants of this country, and of this union there 
has been born five children. 

The circulation of the "Monroe Watchman" newspaper is one 
of the largest of any country newspaper in the State, now num- 
bering more than two thousand, and going into many States of the 
Union, and is a model newspaper — clean, newsy and sensible. 

i regard Albert Sydney Johnston an honest man, a cultured 
gentleman, a patriotic, manly and just citizen. 



608 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



YOUNG. 

John Young came to the territory of this county in 1852. He 
was a native of Pennsylvania, and his father's name was Corne- 
lius. John settled on the waters of Little Bluestone River,, then 
Mercer, and died July 10, 1900. His wife was Mary A. Bradford, 
born in Botetourt County, Virginia, and her father was a soldier 
of the war of 1812. She died in August, 1903. Their children 
were J. Floyd, now a resident of Raleigh County; W. Reed, who 
died on the 24th of December, 1896; Michael A. W., who resides 
in Hinton, and has had a varied career, at one time being a min- 
ister of power and influence in the M. E. Church, and now a sales- 
man for a number of wholesale houses; John L., who was killed 
by his son, August 2, 1900, an account of which is given else- 
where ; Augustus C, one of the most prosperous, intelligent and 
conscientious farmers in the county, living on his farm in Jump- 
ing Branch District ; George S., who lives near Hinton; S. G. L. 
Young, who lives near Jumping Branch, and Victoria J., who mar- 
ried J. A. Cox. and C. L.. who married M. B. Simmons — consti- 
tuting a large family. 

W. R. Young died very suddenly December 24, 1896, near the 
mouth of Bluestone, from heart disease, while traveling. He fell 
from his horse and expired in a moment. He was a most excel- 
lent citizen. 

Augustus C.j who is a Jefferson Democrat and a Missionary Bap- 
tist, has frequently been spoken of for important official positions. 
In 1903 he was appointed postmaster at Jumping Branch under 
Cleveland's administration, and held for a full term, and until 
President McKinley came into office. G. F. Meador. the mer- 
chant at Jumping Branch, was his assistant. It was while he 
held that position that Enon Basham broke into and robbed the 
postofflce. for which he served a term of years in the penitentiary. 
He was arrested by his brother, Robert H. Basham, in order to 
get the fees due therefor. 

This family is not related to the Young family which settled 
on New River in the early days. 

THE COOK FAMILY. 

In the vear 1779 were married in Germany one Daniel Cook 
and Rosanna Willhoit. who shortly after emigrated to the New 
World, and settled somewhere in Virginia, and soon after, becom- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 609 



ing dissatisfied with their home, decided to move farther West. 
Crossing the Alleghenies and coming down the valley of the 
Greenbrier, they settled in what is now Pipestem District, Sum- 
mers County. 

To this couple were born thirteen children, eight boys and five 
girls, as follows : Rhoda, Abram, Joel, Annie, Dinah, David, 
Ephraim, Cornelius, Jemima, Elizabeth, John, James and Madison. 

The oldest, Rhoda, was born in the year 1791, married Larkin 
Williams in 1812, settled in what is now Jumping Branch District, 
and reared a large family of children. 

To this Rhoda Cook AVilliams was born the following sons 
and several daughters, viz. : Fielden, Andrew, who is the father 
of Geo. W T . ; Allen G. and C. A. Williams, now living near Hin- 
ton; John, Lewis, Allen and Samuel, all of whom are now dead 
except Allen and Samuel. Rhoda, after the death of her husband, 
Larkin Williams, lived with Andrew Williams, her son, on the 
farm now occupied by Jas. H. Hobbs, and known as the "Old 
Williams Place,'' until her death, which occurred in 1879, at the 
age of ninety-eight years. 

Abram Cook was born in 1793. Soon after his marriage he 
went West, settled in Indiana, reared a family and there died in 
1876, at the age of eighty-three years. 

Joel Cook, born in 1795, also went to Indiana, and there died 
the same year as Abram Cook (1876), aged eighty-one years. 

Annie Cook, born in 1797, married Andrew Farley, and reared 
a very large family, consisting of the following: Malinda, who 
married Mace Petry, and was living when last heard from in 
Jackson County, this State; Wilson, deceased, the father of Rev. 
John G. Farley., of River Ridge, in this county ; Joel, who is now 
living and is the father of C. T. Allen, Mrs. W. C. Keaton and 
Mrs. W. O. Farley. 

James, deceased, the father of J. Richard, and John A. Far- 
ley, of Pipestem ; Savina, deceased, who married John Petry, of 
Pipestem ; Melven, deceased, who is the father of Mrs. Thomas 
Lilly, Mrs. Tobe Weatherhead, Mrs. M. D. Neely, Austin G. and 
Thomas Farley; Ida, who first married Charles Abbott, and after 
his death married William Hughes, of Pipestem ; Jackson, who is 
the father of Lewis B. Farley, the present sheriff of Mercer 
County; Annie, who married William Dwiggins ; Mary, deceased, 
who married Mandeville Cook ; and Thomas, deceased, the young- 
est child, who entered the Confederate Army, fought under Gen-' 
eral Early, was captured at the Battle of Winchester, and died in 



610 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Camp Chase, Ohio, in 1864. She (Annie) died on River Ridge, 
in the year 1895, at the age of ninety-eight years. 

Dinah, born in 1799, married Gideon Farley, settled near Beech 
Springs, in Pipestem, and reared the following children: Polly, 
who married Jackson Petry, and now lives in Kanawha County; 
Andrew, deceased, who is the father of O. J. Farley, of Pipestem, 
and several daughters ; Rebecca, who married Thomas Lilly, and 
is the mother of Allen G., B. P., Thomas H. and Geo. W. Lilly, 
the present county superintendent of Summers County; Levi, the 
father of N. H. Farley, of Pipestem, and several other children ; 
Nelson, now living in Mercer County; Frank, now living in Ken- 
tucky; Rachel, who married Samuel Hopkins; Nancy, who mar- 
ried Reuben Hopkins ; Malinda, who married Solon Meador, and 
William, the youngest, now living in Raleigh County. She died 
in the year 1884, at the age of eighty-five years. 

David, born in 1801, married a Farley, sister to Andrew, Gid- 
eon and Archibald, for his first wife. He was the father of Isaac 
Cook, and had several daughters. He settled, lived and died in 
Pipestem. His death was caused by a fall from a cherry tree in 
1876, at the age of seventy-three years. 

Cornelius, born in 1803, married a Petry, settled at the foot of 
Bent Mountain, in Mercer County, and reared a large family, 
where he continued to reside until his death, which occurred in 
1884, at the age of eighty-one years. 

Jemima Cook, born in 1806, married Archibald Farley, and 
settled on the old homestead now owned and occupied by their 
youngest child, Mr. L. W. Farley. They reared a family consist- 
ing of the following: Madison, who is the father of Henderson, 
of Mercer County; W. O., present member of the county court; 
Robert, Walter and Mrs. C. M. Vest; Mrs. John Cawley, de- 
ceased; A. G. P., Henderson, of Indiana; H. C, A. P., Chloe, 
deceased, who married Allen G. Lilly, and L. W. Farley. She 
died in 1883, at the age of seventy-seven years. 

Elizabeth, born in 1809, married Martin Cadle, who is still liv- 
ing, and able to walk thirty miles in a day, and is now ninety 
years old, and has never been sick a single day during his life. 
To Elizabeth and Uncle "Mart" were born the following: John, 
deceased; William, deceased, and Daniel, now living in Iowa, be- 
sides several daughters, among whom is Mrs. Geo. W. AVilliams, 
of Leatherwood, near Hinton. Elizabeth died in the year 1900, 
at the age of ninety-one years. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 611 



John Cook, who was born in 1813, and was living in Indiana 
when last heard from, and if living is now ninety-three years old. 

James Cook, born in 1816, married Nancy Neely, and lived in 
Pipestem until his death, which occurred in April, 1901, from the 
effects of a burn. He was eighty-five years old when he died. 
James was the father of Mrs. Delila Meador, the stepmother of 
County Clerk J. M. Meador; Mrs. Sarah Oxley, John, deceased; 
Daniel H., living near Foss, W. Va. ; Mahala, deceased; Martha 
J., who was the first wife of Rev. W. C. Keaton ; James W., liv- 
ing in Mercer County ; H. C, William G., and Mrs. Lucretia Mil- 
ler, deceased. 

Madison Cook, born in 1818, was the youngest child. He was 
fifty-eight years old at the death of the first child of the family. 

Four of this ancient Cook family married in old Drewry Far- 
ley's family, who came and settled in Pipestem about the same 
time. They were Annie, Dinah, Jemima and David, who married 
Andrew, Gideon, Archibald and Elizabeth, and by so doing formed 
a very close relationship between the two families, so much so 
that their histories are very closely blended. Mention will be 
made of the Farley family in another chapter. 

This ancient Cook family, without a single exception, so far 
as I can learn, were all Baptists, and many of them connected 
with that church before the "split," as it was called, after which 
the individual members of the family followed the dictates of their 
own consciences. Some united with the old New River or Indian 
Creek Association, and others with the old Greenbrier Associa- 
tion. Only a few years since another wing of the Baptist Church, 
known as the "Regular" Baptists, have organized, with quite a 
membership, several churches and a few associations, and the 
descendants of this Cook family are still adhering to one of these 
Baptist churches, either the Primitive, Missionary, or Regular 
Baptist churches, never losing "the faith once delivered to the 
saints/' and honestly contending for baptism by immersion as the 
only mode authorized by God's Word. 

Many of the old Cook family are laid to rest in the old familv 
churchyard on the farm first settled by the ancient Drewry Far- 
ley, near the shadows of the "Old Rocky Mount Church," upon the 
farm where Alexander Farley now lives, and near Farley Post- 
office. 

At the time of the settlement of Pipestem District by these 
ancient Cook and Farley families, there were scarcely any white 
settlers nearer than Lewisburg. Indians were often seen passing 



612 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



through the country. The forests abounded with bears, deer, pan- 
thers and all kinds of smaller game. But time has wrought great 
changes. Generation after generation has come and passed away. 
The forests where the wild deer and the Indian roamed at will, 
where the moonbeams sparkled upon unbroken forests, where the 
"Indian lover wooed his dusky mate" — these solitary forests have 
been transformed into fine farms, where a healthful and thriving 
populace are now living under the eaves of schools and churches, 
and who hold beckoning hands to the weary traveler to come in 
and find a welcome with their stalwart sons and ruddy-cheeked 
daughters, and hide from the cold blasts of winter storms. A 
more generous and kind-hearted people will be hard to find than 
these, the descendants of this ancient Cook and Farley families, 
who now compose perhaps one-half the population of Pipestem 
District. 

"But the old families are gone, 

With their forests wild and deep, 

And we have built our homes upon . 

Fields where their generations sleep." 

The first settlement on Indian Creek was made by the Cooks 
in 1770, three miles from its mouth. This is near where Indian 
Mills now stands, and there they built a fort known as Cook's 
Fort, into which the settlers in the surrounding region — Brad- 
shaw's Run, Indian Creek and the Stinking Lick country — were 
gathered on the alarm of the approach of Indians. The horses 
and cattle were permitted to run at large with bells hung to their 
necks, and these cattle and animals would also be gathered into 
the fort to prevent their theft and destruction by the Indians. 

We are not able to state what generation of Cooks made this 
settlement. 

FLANAGAN. 

Among the very first settlers who located in Hinton, and be- 
fore it was a town or even a village, were the Flanagan brothers, 
from Fayette County. R. R. Flanagan has lived longer in the 
city than any other man now living, except the Hinton boys, who 
were living here before the coming of the railroad. There were 
three brothers of the name who located early in the town — Robert 
R., Richard A. and Andrew G. Flanagan. They were the sons 
of Richard Allen Flangan, one of the oldest pioneers of Fayette 



ANDREW G. FLANNAGAN, 
Capitalist. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 613 



County, who settled and lived near Boyer's Ferry, now Sewell, 
in that county. He was born in Nelson County, Va., in the year 
1807. While a small boy his parents moved from Nelson to Al- 
bemarle County. His father's name was James Flanagan, and he 

was a son of : — ■ Flanagan, who emigrated from England, 

the Flanagan's being of English descent, the original ancestor 
crossing the ocean in the early settlement of the English in Amer- 
ica. The grandmother of the present Flanagan generation was 
Nancy Allen, a sister of Judge James Allen, of Richmond, Vir- 
ginia. Richard A. Flanagan married Nancy Gwinn, a sister of 
Avis Hinton, William and Lewis Gwinn, of Meadow Creek, and 
Andrew Gwinn, of Illinois, and was a descendant of the old set- 
tler at Lowell, Samuel Gwinn. The children of Richard A. Flana- 
gan were the three brothers above named and William G. Flana- 
gan, now a resident of this county at the old Eidridge Gwinn 
place in the Little Meadows. He has occupied a number of posi- 
tions and offices of trust, both in Fayette and Summers Counties. 
In Fayette County he was deputy sheriff, justice of the peace, 
road surveyor and a notary public. After his removal to Sum- 
mers County he held the office of justice of the peace for four 
years, president of the Board of Education four years, and was 
a notary public and one of the leaders of the Republican party. 
There were two other brothers, James Allen and Laban, and one 
sister, Hettie, the three now being dead. The latter married 
Isaac Gilkerson, of Fayette County. Laban married a daughter 
of William Ford, a sister of the wife of W. H. Boude, clerk. 
James was never married. Another son died when eleven years 
old. He was killed by a tree falling on him accidentally. The 
other two daughters were Mrs. Eliza J. Maxwell, who married 
Robert H. Maxwell, now residing in Hinton ; the other one, Eliza- 
beth, married W. T. Timberlake, of Fayette County, the father 
of Dr. Timberlake, who married Josa Fredeking of Hinton, and 
who is now surgeon for the Deepwater Railway Company at 
Page, West Virginia. 

Robert R. Flanagan was born in 1848, and married Miss Frede- 
king, a daughter of Lee Fredeking, of Hinton. He was engaged 
for some years as superintendent of the C. & O. telegraph sys- 
tem between White Sulphur and Huntington. He is one of the 
wealthiest men in Hinton, and possibly the largest holder of real 
estate within that city. He had faith in the city from the earliest, 
and made judicious investments in real estate, which he has re- 
tained, improving the same from year to year, and which has 



614 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



greatly appreciated in value. He held the office of posmaster of 
Hinton for a term of four years by appointment from President 
Benjamin Harrison. He has been a member of the city council, 
and has frequently declined to run for political office on the de- 
mand of his party. He is connected with all of the principal 
business enterprises of the city, and has done as much as any 
other one man in developing the same. He is a stockholder and 
director in the First National Bank; president of the Xew River 
Milling Company ; director- in the Greenbrier Springs Company ; 
was manager, stockholder and director in the Hinton Water 
Works Company from its organization in 1890 for a period of 
fifteen years, and after its repurchase by home capitalists he again 
became a stockholder and general manager, which position he 
now holds against his protest. He is a director in the First Na- 
tional Bank of Pineville, and is one of the promoters of the Hin- 
ton Toll Bridge Company, whose bridge spans New River at 
Hinton, as well as in a number of other local enterprises. He is 
a Presbyterian in his religious belief. 

Andrew G. Flanagan, the youngest son, was born in Fayette 
County, on March 15, 1852; located at Hinton about 1876, and 
was for a number of years depot agent for the C. & O. Ry. Co. 
He held the office of town sergeant for three years, when he re- 
signed : Avas elected mayor for one term; has been a commissioner 
in chancery for about ten years, appointed first by Judge Mc- 
Whorter and then by Judge Miller, which position he still holds. 
He has represented the United States Government as River Ob- 
server for the Weather Bureau for the past twenty-five years. 
He married Miss Alice E. Fredeking, daughter of C. A. Frede- 
king, one of the first settlers in Hinton, in 1879, and is one of the 
substantial and large property owners of the city, and connected 
as stockholder and official with a majority of the local business 
enterprises, including the Hinton Hardware Company, of which 
he is secretary, and has been from its organization ; secretary of 
the Lilly Lumber Company; stockholder in the National Bank of 
Summers, and is one of the principal stockholders in the Hinton 
Toll Bridge Company, and a stockholder in the First National 
Bank of Pineville and the Greenbrier Springs Company, and also 
in the Hinton Water, Light & Supply Company, which succeeds 
the old Hinton Water Works Company, of which he was a stock- 
holder, and was manager of that company at one time, when 
owned by the Pennsylvania stockholders. He was a stockholder, 
promoter and manager of the Hinton & Southeastern Telephone 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



615 



Company, the first telephone company that ever constructed its 
lines into the city of Hinton. Mr. Flanagan is one of the substan- 
tial citizens, progressive and enterprising. He has never in poli- 
tics been in office, and believes in good government, and is identi- 
fied with the best interests of the county. 

Richard Albert, known as Albert, died in 1891. He was a resi- 
dent of Roanoke, Va., but died at his brother's in Hinton, and was 
buried in Hilltop Cemetery. 

When Richard Allen Flanagan, the ancestor, was eighteen 
years of age, his mother started to emigrate to Ohio overland, 
passing over the Allegheny Mountains through Greenbrier, stop- 
ping over night at Colonel George Alderson's, at what is now 
Meadowdale, where J. C. Henry lives. The next morning, by 
reason of the stormy weather and snow, Colonel Alderson offered 
Mrs. Flanagan, the mother of R. A. Flanagan, a house about a 
half-mile from his residence, known as the John B. Gwinn place. 
She accepted the offer and spent the winter in that house. By 
that time she had decided to remain in that country. 

His first wife was Mary Ellen Cary, born October 7, 1829. 
James Allen was born October 31, 1831 ; Laban, October 14, 1834. 
Wm. G., who now lives in the Meadows, was born November 22, 
1836. His mother died at Meadow Creek Station, at the David 
Bowls place. From the time of his location, Mr. Flanagan was a 
resident of that country, and spent the remainder of his life there, 
except for a short while he resided in Jackson County, West Vir- 
ginia, from 1840 to 1841, when he married his second wife. He 
settled on the old place at Sewell, then Boyer's Ferry, in 1844. 
He was a justice of the peace for two terms — eight years — prior 
to the Civil War, and held that office at the beginning of the war. 
The justices at that time composed the county court. He was 
opposed to secession, and was a Union man throughout the Civil 
War. He was the only justice of the peace at that time of that 
county who was opposed to secession. The justices entered an 
order of record as follows: "We are in favor of secession, and 
we pledge our sacred honor to use all the means at our disposal 
and our present means, and when all is exhausted we will live 
upon roots and still fight for the cause of secession," against which 
Flanagan voted. This is the substance of the resolution entered 
by the county court which met with his opposition. Prior to the 
war he was a strong Democrat, and took an active part in all 
elections. In 1860 he and three sons, who were old enough to 
vote, voted for Douglas against Breckenridge. In April, 1861, 



616 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



a vote was taken whether we should secede. Mr. Flanagan and 
his sons, Joseph and William C, who were of voting age, voted 
against the secession of the Southern States. After 1860 he voted 
the Republican ticket. Often in county and district he favored 
the best men. He favored the Flick Amendment, which prac- 
tically abolished the ironclad test oath, his policy being, "If the 
rebels were guilty, let them be punished according to law, and 
not by disfranchisement or decitizenising them." 

Mr. Flanagan was twice elected to the House of Delegates of 
the West Virginia Legislature, serving one term at Wheeling, 
when the capital was in that city, and the other in Charleston. 
He voted in favor of removing the capital from Wheeling to 
Charleston. He was a member when the act was passed creating 
Summers County, and voted in favor of the passage of the act, 
and was active in securing the formation of the new county. For 
his services in the Legislature, see the acts of the session of 1870 
and of 1871. Members of the Legislature at that time, under the 
old Constitution, being elected each year, he served two terms 
in that office. He died on the 4th of July, 1884, and is buried in 
Hilltop Cemetery, at Hinton, where a handsome granite monu- 
ment has been erected at his grave by his sons. 

Mr. Flanagan was a wealthy man at his day, being the owner 
of lands in the New River coal field. On their development, lands 
which had been almost worthless before became very valuable. 

The children of R. R. Flanagan are Frederick, Andrew, Marie 
Lucile and Eliza Louise. 

The only living child of Andrew G. Flanagan is Miss Vella, 
who married the attorney, Judge A. D. Daly, of Hinton. 

DANIEL MORGAN MEADOR 

Was born March 16, 1856, in Raleigh County, West Virginia. 
His parents were Lewis and Rachel Meador. His mother was 
Miss Rachel Cox. His grandfather's name was Thomas, and he 
settled and lived at the old Pack Mill, seven miles above the mouth 
of Bluestone. Lewis Meador is known all over this region of 
country by reason of his having carried the mail from here to 
Raleigh Court House for many years, and with many courtesies 
extended to the people on the route. 

D. M. Meador was married November 28,. 1878, to Miss Syl- 
vira Richmond, a daughter of William Richmond, of Raleigh 
County, and a sister of Mrs. William Plumly, Jr., and of Allen 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



617 



Richmond, of Jumping Branch, and of John and Lewis Richmond, 
citizens and merchants of Hinton. The brothers of Mr. Meador 
were LaFayette, who was a merchant in Hinton for many years, 
and is now in the lumber business in Virgina ; Isaac, of Shady 
Springs, Raleigh County, Henry and Matthew. 

D. M. Meador was elected a justice of the peace from Rich- 
mond District, which position he held for four years. He is a 
Democrat in politics and a Christian Baptist in religion. He has 
been a merchant in Hinton for many years, is a large property 
owner, and one of the promoters of and stockholders in the Hin- 
ton Foundry & Machine Company. He has been engaged also in 
the lumber manufacturing and stave business for a number of 
years, now operating on a large scale at Cliff Top, in Fayette 
County, and is an enterprising and thrifty citizen. He is a de- 
scendant of the original pioneer Meador who settled in the Blue- 
stone region. 

HARVEY. 

The late Allen L. Harvey resided for many years and until 
his death, on the 9th day of February, 1883, on his farm, a good 
plantation on New River, above Crump's Bottom, in Forest Hill 
District. He was born at Red Sulphur Springs, in Monroe 
County, then Virginia, on July 28, 1822, and was the oldest son 
of James and Nancy Harvey. He had three sisters — Sallie, who 
married William Adair ; Mary, who married Dr. Ward Cook, who 
resided in the State of Indiana, and Amanda, who married Hon. 
W r m. Haynes; and two brothers, James A. Harvey and J. S. 
Harvey. 

Mr. Harvey made his home with his parents at Red Sulphur 
until he was twenty-five years of age, when he married Miss 
Melinda J. Pack, daughter of one of the old settlers of the county, 
Archibald Pack, who then lived in Mercer County. Immediately 
after the marriage of Mr. Harvey he removed to his farm on New 
River, where his sons now reside, known as the "McDaniels 
Farm," and at which place he resided until his death. He left 
surviving him a wife and eleven children, eight girls and three 
boys, all of whom are still living and all married, except one 
son, James H., and one daughter. His wife died on the 30th day 
of March, 1904. 

Mr. Harvey was a very intelligent and prominent citizen in 
Monroe County before the formation of Summers County, and 
in the latter after its formation. He held the office of Commis- 



618 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



sioner of Internal Revenue by election in Monroe County for 
four years; also deputy sheriff four years, and high sheriff of 
Monroe County four years, and was a justice of the peace in 
Summers County for a number of years, as well as -one of the 
justices of the county court under the old Constitution, when 
that tribunal held jurisdiction in all chancery and civil causes. 

John E. Harvey, the oldest son, is a farmer and surveyor by 
occupation, having been educated in the public schools and at the 
Concord Normal School. He was twice elected surveyor of this 
county, and held the office for two full terms of four years each, 
and declined further election. His two brothers, James H. and 
William L., are both enterprising farmers, and also reside on New 
River, in Forest Hill District, All are loyal citizens. 

They are each active, loyal Democrats, noted in the councils 
of their party. One of the daughters of A. L. Harvey, Miss Lin- 
nie, married A. J. Keatley, the present sheriff of Summers County; 
another married Rev. James Sweeney, of Beckley, and another 
Captain Bob Sanders, of Forest Hill. 

A. L. Harvey was a Democrat the greater part of his life and 
up to about 1880, when he cast his fortunes with the Greenback 
organization, believing, along with many other Democrats and 
Republicans, in the doctrines of that party on the money issues. 
He was largely the promoter of the establishment of the Hinton 
"Banner' in 1878, a newspaper founded for the purpose of pro- 
claiming the doctrines and faith of the Greenback party, and which, 
on the collapse of that political organization, collapsed with it. 

The Harveys' farm was in aboriginal times a town of some 
ancient peoples. A great many human skeletons have been plowed 
up from beneath the surface. Parts' of crockery and earthen 
utensils of various characters, some in the shape of pots, and 
many evidences are yet constantly appearing of populations of a 
prehistoric race. 

Near the mouth of Indian Creek, a short distance below the 
Harvey place, there is a cliff of rocks, on one of which there is 
the imprint of an Indian figure, and traditions have it that there 
is a jar of gold buried beneath this cliff, and the "get-rich-quick" 
and .fortune-hunters have sought for it by digging beneath the 
rocks, but with the usual results — their labor was lost. 

A. L. Harvey was also sheriff of Monroe County during the 
period of the Civil War, and his two brothers, James A. and John 
S., were each soldiers in the Confederate Army. 

Mr. Harvey was a prominent and useful citizen, and one of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 619 



the history-makers of the county at its formation, and until the 
date of his death, and his sons and children are honest, loyal 
citizens. 

John E. Harvey has had some remarkable experiences. While 
a student at the Normal School, he was accidentally shot through 
the body by one of his schoolmates from his own county, Oscar 
Roles. The wound was exceedingly serious, and it was a remark- 
able escape from death. While engaged in repairing his barn, in 
1905, he was struck by a piece of timber and very dangerously 
wounded. His physicians were hopeless of his recovery, and di- 
rected that he be brought to the Hinton Hospital. He was un- 
able to be transported by any conveyance except by a skiff. He 
was placed in a skiff and started for Hinton after dark, a distance 
of twenty miles, and he was brought down the river all the way 
after night, lying in the bottom of the boat, one man rowing. 
He reached the hospital at eleven o'clock that same night, and 
thus his life was saved. He was brought through the rapids at 
the mouth of Greenbrier, Bluestone and Warford, as well as other 
swift and dangerous places, and with no moonlight. 

JAMES H. GEORGE. 

James H. George, ex-sheriff of Summers County, and now 
president of the Bank of Pineville and cashier of the Bank of 
Wyoming, was born at Green Sulphur Springs, on his father's 
farm, on February 20, 1868. on Lick Creek, then Greenbrier 
County. On the 9th day of October, 1895, he married Miss Jes- 
sie G. Pollock, of Muddy Creek, in Greenbrier County. Having 
been elected cashier of the Bank of Wyoming, he removed to 
Oceana, in that county, on the first day of February, 1903. He 
was educated in the common and private schools on Lick Creek, 
reared on his father's plantation, and engaged in teaching the free 
schools for one or two years. He is a son of Thomas Allen 
George, one of the most influential citizens of Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict. His mother was Mary Hinchman, of Monroe County, a 
daughter of William Hinchman, and one of the descendants of 
William Hinchman, the English pioneer settler near Lowell, in 
this county. 

In 1896 James H. George was nominated by the Democratic 
party for sheriff of Summers County over ex-Sheriff O. T. Kes- 
ler, one of the strongest men in the county. At the ensuing elec- 
tion in November, he, with his other Democratic associates, was 



620 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



elected, his majority being votes. He filled the full term of 

the office for four years, beginning January 1, 1897, his deputies 
being W. R. Neely, Jr., John W. Wiseman and James D. Bolton. 
During his term he was appointed a member of the Book Board 
of Summers County, which he resigned upon his removal to Wy- 
oming County. 

The wife of Mr. George died on June 22, 1899. He is 
considered an excellent financier and business man, and has 
managed the affairs of the banks over which he has control and 
supervision with excellent skill and judgment. He is a member 
of the Presbyterian Church, having united with that organization 
in his early youth, and is a descendant of the Greenbrier Georges 
and Monroe Hinchmans. 

ENOS C. FLINT. 

I am unable to give as full a history of the honorable family 
of this name as desired, for want of full and complete information. 
There were two settlers by the name of Flint who located on 
Griffith's Creek, in Talcott District, many years ago. One, C. A. 
Flint, was the father of Enos C. Flint, and the other his brother, 
Jeremiah Flint, both of whom reared families, J. A. Graham, of 
Hinton, having intermarried with the daughter of Jerry Flint. 

C. A. Flint was born in Monroe County, that part of which 
is now Summers, in 1843. His wife was Elizabeth Ellis, of Grif- 
fith's Creek, a daughter of Enos Ellis, and one of the very first 
settlers of that region of country. They left surviving them five 
children — Mary J., who married a Mr. Barnett, being the oldest, 
born October 17, 1844; Enos C, born December 3, 1845 ; Nancy 
R., who married Matthew A. Withrow, of Lick Creek, born March 
26, 1848; Thomas G., a farmer, who resides on Griffith's Creek, 
born August 11, 1849; Melinda F., born January 27, 1853. 

Enos C. Flint married Sarah A. Withrow, a daughter of Sam- 
uel H. and Amanda, of Lick Creek, ou the 10th day of April, 1873. 
Airs. Flint was one of the old students of the old "Gum School," 
at which place she attended school in her youth, along with many 
other of the youths of Green Sulphur District. Many of the pranks 
and games and much of the fun of the youth of that region being 
acquired, as well as their education, at the old log temple of learn- 
ing, situate under the old gum tree at the Lick Creek Ford, on the 
lower end of the Samuel Withrow farm. 

Enos C. Flint resides on the farm where he was born. He has 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 621 



been throughout his life one of the substantial citizens of that 
community, and was elected to the office of justice of the peace, 
which office he held for a term of four years, fulfilling his duties 
to the entire satisfaction of his constituency. He has been nomi- 
nated frequently for other positions, all of which he has refused 
to accept, except for a part of one term, filling the office as mem- 
ber of the Board of Education. He is a Democrat in his political 
faith, and a Missionary Baptist, as well as his wife, in his re- 
ligious belief, both being members of that church organization. 

C. A. Flint died April 3, 1902, his brother, Jerry Flint, dying 
some years previous, leaving a family, whose names I have not 
learned, one of his sons being Thomas Flint, now residing in 
North Alderson, and a citizen of excellent standing. 

CLAYTON. 

This place derives its name from an incident occurring many 
years ago, before the railroad, the telegraph and the balloons had 
reached this portion of the Western wilderness. Richard Clayton 
was a resident of Cincinnati, Ohio, and in April, 1835, made a 
balloon ascension in that city, at 5 o'clock P. M., landing the next 
morning, at 2 o'clock A. M., in the top of a large tree on San- 
son's Knob, the highest point of Keeney's Knob, or Keeney's 
Mountain, near the chalybeate spring, designated as the Mossy 
Spring, then Monroe County, now Summers County, being near 
the corner line of the three counties of Monroe, Summers and 
Greenbrier. Mr. Clayton had some ropes with him in his balloon, 
with which he lowered himself to the earth,, landing in a com- 
plete wilderness. After some search he found a dim path leading 
to some cabins two miles distant, in which resided Samuel and 
James Gill, whom he secured to look for his balloon, but they 
were not successful in their search at first. By their directions, 
Mr. Clayton found his way to the house of Mr. Jos. Graham, the 
father of David Graham, the historian of the Graham family. The 
Gills, in the afternoon, found the balloon, and that night brought 
it to Mr. Clayton at Joseph Graham's house. This was on Thurs- 
day. On Friday the two Gills and two of Mr. Graham's sons, 
John, the surveyor, and James, the farmer, and Clayton, secured 
the balloon and brought it to the house. 

In those days, as Mr. Graham stated in his history, the militia 
was required to train twice a year, in April and October. The 
next day following; Saturday, was a militia training day, and the 



622 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



two Graham boys, who were then young men, went to the drill 
for muster in the militia, and there spread the news of the won- 
derful event of the landing of the balloon on Keeney's Knob. 
The people doubted their veracity, as it was remarkably strange 
news for a man to come from Cincinnati in nine hours, a distance 
of 360 miles. 

Hiram Graham was secured by Mr. Clayton to convey him- 
self and the balloon to Charleston, then in Virginia, now West 
Virginia, in Kanawha County, by wagon, which they proceeded 
to do on the following day, which was Sunday. On Sunday morn- 
ing the cavalcade began its march, and the citizens and the peo- 
ple along the route put in their appearance, doubting the veracity 
of the story of this wonderful performance by the balloonist. The 
balloon was somewhat torn by the limbs ; otherwise, it was un- 
injured. Mr. Clayton, with his wagon and balloon, returned to 
Cincinnati, crossing Keeney's Knob, passing down Lick Creek, up 
Mill Creek, across the Sewell Mountain, War Ridge, to the old 
* James River and Kanawha Turnpike ; thence down the same to 
the mouth of Gauley, and thence to Charleston, there loading his 
balloon and himself on a steamboat, and proceeding to Cincin- 
nati, there being no other means of transportation between these 
two points in those days. Hiram Graham was hired to haul the 
balloon to Charleston. 

The present postoffice of Clayton, when established a few years 
ago, was named after Richard Clayton, this balloonist, and from 
the incident herein recited. This postoffice is located on the site 
of the old Joseph Graham residence, now owned and occupied by 
Mr. David Graham Ballangee, the owner and a grandson of Jo- 
seph Graham, the present postmaster, and, in fact, the only post- 
master, who has ever filled that position at that place. 

HON. A. N. CAMPBELL. 

The family of Campbell is a Monroe family, but there are 
descendants of the original ancestor, as well as numerous connec- 
tions and relatives, within our territory, who have been identified 
with our history from the beginning, including Andrew L. Camp- 
bell, the present county surveyor, and Airs. M. A. Manning, of 
Talcott. children of Isaac Campbell, who are descendants of the 
first settler in this country, Robert Campbell, who emigrated to 
America from Armagh County, Ireland, locating in Greenbrier 
County, 'near the Pickaway Plains, which is now Monroe County. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 623 



Robert Campbell, the ancient ancestor of this family in America, 
was born in Armagh, Ireland, the same county from which the 
McCreery ancestors came, and was tlvt son of Archie, who lived 
and died in that country. Robert, after his location in the Pick- 
away country, married a Miss Jeffries, a Welsh lady, who came 
from Wales in her childhood with her father. Andrew Campbell, 
the son of Robert, and the great-grandson of Archie, and the 
father of the older generation of the Campbell family now inhabit- 
ing this county, married a Miss Hawkins, whose father was born 
in England. The Campbells are Scotch-Irish, the ancient ances- 
tors having emigrated from Scotland to Ireland, and from Ireland 
a later generation emigrated to America, by which reason they 
are known as Scotch-Irish. Andrew Campbell lived to be eighty- 
five years old. He died on the old Campbell homestead near Pick- 
away. He left the following sons : Archibald, Echols, Newton, 
Boyd, Andrew, Nelson and Rev. James Patrick, all of whom were 
noted for their handsome physical proportions, being tall, stout, 
muscular and finely developed men. Hon. Andrew Nelson Camp- 
bell has been largely identified with affairs in Summers County 
from its formation. He was one of the first lawyers admitted to 
practice at its bar, and has practiced his profession of law at 
intervals since that time therein. He was born on September 25, 
1842. In 1867 he married a Miss Leach, a member of the ancient 
family of Leach and one of the prominent families of Monroe 
County. He entered the Confederate Army first as a member of 
the Gfeenbrier Cavalry at the beginning of the Civil War. After 
the expiration of one year that company disbanded, Captain Bob 
Moomaw being its captain, and for the remaining three years of 
the Avar he was a member of Bryan's Battery, and was then and 
has since been known as the "Big Sergeant." In 1867 he graduated 
from the law school of Washington College, now Washington 
and Lee University, at Lexington, Virginia, but was not admitted 
to practice his profession by reason of the infamous test-oath 
restrictions until 1870, and after the abolition of that infamous 
piece of restrictive legislation. In 1870 he was admitted to the 
practice, and formed a law partnership with the late Senator 
Frank Hereford, which continued for many years, after which he 
continued to practice alone. In 1871 he was elected from Monroe 
to the House of Delegates of West Virginia, and served in the 
session of 1872-3. He served for a term as a member of the 
Regents of the West Vir ginia University. In 1888 he was elected 
judge of the Circuit Court of the Tenth Judicial Circuit, including- 



624 



HISTORY 



OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the counties of Greenbrier, Monroe, Pocahontas, Summers and 
Fayette, which position he held for the term of eight years, and 
at the expiration of which he was renominated by his party for 
re-election, but the district having become Republican through 
the development of the coal regions and emigration, he was de- 
feated by a greatly reduced majority by the late Judge J. M. Mc- 
Whorter. Since his retirement from the bench he has practiced 
his profession, his entire time being engaged, however, in looking 
after the legal affairs of the vast interests of the late Colonel 
Joseph L. Beury and the Deepwater Railway Company, now the 
Virginian. For the past five years he has been counsel for that 
corporation, located at Beckley, and has been largely instrumental 
in securing the right of way for that great railroad now being con- 
structed for a considerable distance through Raleigh County, and 
was the leading attorney in a large number of litigated law suits 
concerning the right of way. and especially in the noted ''Jenney 
Gap" case, in which instance the Deepwater Company bought and 
owned a tract of land on which the Jenney Gap is located. The 
C. & O. Railway Co. desired to extend its Piney Branch line through 
this gap into Wyoming County : made its surveys, brought condem- 
nation proceedings and had its right of way condemned. The 
commissioners reported a large amount of damages, approximating 
$25,000. The Deepwater made is survey through the same land 
and located its tunnel, and contested the right of the other company, 
which contest was sustained by the court of last resort, and 
which held that the property could not be condemned, and that 
the Deepwater had the preference. The C. & O. Railway Co. pro- 
ceeding on the theory that the condemnation would be sustained, 
constructed its tunnel at a cost of probably $75,000. The case was 
carried to the Supreme Court of Appeals, and the lower court 
reversed, the decision being in effect that the Deepwater held 
preference. It proceeded to oust the C. & O., and took possession 
of the tunnel which had been constructed, and is now operating 
same without compensation. Judge Campbell has recently retired 
as attorney for the Virginian Railway Company, and has retired 
from the practice of the profession, retaining only the winding up 
of his engagements with the Beury estate. He is a man of great 
legal learning, remarkable for his fine recollection and ability to 
cite the reported cases and established law. His great ability as 
an attorney has been recognized throughout this section of the 
State, and he has been engaged in the trial of many contested 
controversies, especially in the counties of Monroe and Greenbrier 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 625 



during the days of his active practice, including the famous Jarrett 
and Perry will cases. He is large in both body and mind, as well 
as heart, and one of the most genial men it has been our good 
fortune to know. He has been spoken of frequently for the Su- 
preme Court of the State, but he has never been a politician or 
an office seeker, though a pronounced and active Democrat, re- 
maining loyal to his party throughout all of its vicissitudes. In 
religious matters he is a Presbyterian, being a member of that 
organization, as are the Campbell generation, with the bare excep- 
tion, as we remember, of his brother, the Rev. J. P. Campbell, 
who was a minister in the Missionary Baptist Church. There is 
one son of Judge Campbell, Andrew, who is now a citizen of Sum- 
mers County, being an assistant in the Hinton Department Com- 
pany stores. 

In retiring from the active practice of his profession, Judge 
Campbell does so with a handsome fortune. He has never resided 
in the towns. Early in life he acquired forty acres of the blue 
grass lands near Pickaway Plains, six miles from Union, the 
county seat of Monroe County, where he has resided since, pre- 
ferring the country and agricultural surroundings and the domes- 
ticity of the country. He was a brave soldier, a learned lawyer, 
a faithful friend and a loyal citizen, and the most widely known 
Campbell in the State. The person and the reputation of "Nelse" 
Campbell is known in almost every hamlet throughout the State, 
and his reputation has gone beyond its confines as one of the ablest 
men that the State has produced. 

REV. J. P. CAMPBELL. 

No history of the city of Hinton or of Summers County would 
be complete without a mention of this most excellent citizen and 
minister of the gospel and his family. He was a son of Andrew 
and Anna Campbell, born December 26, 1846, at Pickaway, Mon- 
roe County, Virginia ; attended the neighborhood schools and two 
sessions of the Academy at Union, taught by the pioneer Presby- 
terian preacher, educator and missionary, the Rev. Dr. Samuel 
Houston and Hugh A. White. 

The Civil War coming on when Mr. Campbell was little more 
than fourteen years of age, he, with his brothers Arch and Hon. 
A. Nelson Campbell, enlisted in the service of the Southern Con- 
federacy at the beginning of hostilities, his brother Arch being 
killed in the first battle of Manassas. 



626 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Mr. Campbell remained on his father's farm, the larger part 
of the management of the same devolving upon him, and until he 
was seventeen years of age. the time at which he enlisted in the 
Southern cause. He served the first year of the war in the position 
of adjutant of the Fourth Battalion of Virginia Infantry, com- 
manded by Colonel S. M. Wallace. At the close of the war he 
returned to his father's farm in poor health, and, after remaining 
there a short time, again entered school at Union, in • Monroe 
County, then taught by Rev. S. R. Houston, but on account of 
continued ill health, caused by exposure during his army service, 
he was forced to abandon school and devote himself to outdoor 
life, by reason of which his school life terminated, practically, with 
the beginning of the war. 

On the 9th day of December, 1865, he united with the Sinks 
Grove Baptist Church, being the first male member of his family 
of seven boys to unite with any church organization. On the 25th 
day of April, 1866, he was married to Louise F. Crews, daughter 
of Thomas D. and Eveline Crews, of Monroe County. To this 
marriage five children have been born, four of whom are still 
living, his second daughter having died at the age of twenty-one 
years. 

Mr. Campbell received his license as a minister in the Mis- 
sionary Baptist Church from the Springfield Church, Monroe 
County, in May, 1869, and was ordained as a minister in said 
church on November 20, 1870. The first sixteen years of his min- 
istry were spent in his native county of Monroe, serving faithfully 
and to the satisfaction of his parishioners ; the Red Sulphur Church 
for fourteen years ; Sink's Grove, his native home church, for ten 
years, and other churches for different periods, giving to each 
church one-fourth of his time, and during which time two churches, 
Oak Grove and Ronceverte, were organized through his labors and 
influence. 

He was elected in 1887 to the position of superintendent of free 
schools of Monroe County, which position he held until 1881, teach- 
ing school one term. In November, 1886, he removed with his 
family to Concord, now Athens, Mercer County, in order to secure 
educational facilities and advantages for his growing family of 
children at the Concord Normal School, at which place he resided 
twelve years, and during which time, through his instrumentality, 
the Missionary Baptist Church at Athens, Hill Top, in Summers 
County, and Glen Lynn, in Giles County, Virginia, were organ- 
ized, and for six years of this twelve years he gave one-fourth of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 627 



his time to the Princeton Church, and for two years he made 
monthly visits to the church at Beckley, a distance of forty-five 
miles, which visits were made on horseback. During eight years 
of the same period he was a member of the executive committee 
and treasurer of the Concord Normal School, and for four years 
held the office- of postmaster at Athens under Cleveland's second 
administration. He was also the pastor of the church on Green- 
brier River, near Foss. 

He was called to the pastorate of the First Baptist Church at 
Hinton, March 1, 1898, which position he retained for seven years 
and two months, resigning of his own accord and against the unani- 
mous desire of that congregation on May 1, 1905. His ministra- 
tions to the spiritual welfare of his congregation and to the citizens 
of the city of Hinton were exceedingly profitable and gratifying 
to that community. 

He was an enterprising citizen, took great interest in public 
affairs, was liberal in his views, and accorded to others the freedom 
of thought to which all American citizens are entitled. He always 
felt and took a lively and active interest in political matters, thor- 
oughly identifying himself with the Democratic party, but never 
becoming a politician in any sense of the word, but not ashamed 
of his political faith and doctrines at any time or at any place, 
adhering to the doctrine that it was the privilege and duty of a 
minister, as well as other citizens, to advocate the political doc- 
trines which he believed in himself and which he believed to be 
to the interest of the great mass of the common people of the land. 

He was greatly admired and a very warm personal friend of 
the late H. W. Straley, the noted financier and philanthropist of 
Princeton, Mercer County, and was called to his funeral, which 
he attended, traveling a distance of nearly forty miles through in- 
clement weather, to administer the last rites to his deceased friend. 

On account of his great popularity and the great confidence 
in which he is held and esteemed, many demands have been made 
upon his physical, as well as mental, strength, to minister during 
the sickness and death of many of the citizens in different parts of 
this section of the State, all of which he has fulfilled, although at 
great sacrifice to his comfort. 

After the resignation of Mr. Campbell's pastorate at Hinton, 
he spent three months as a supply for the Fifth Avenue Baptist 
Church at Huntington and Mason County, Kentucky, where he is 
at the time of this writing pleasantly located. 

Mr. Campbell, is a useful citizen to any community, and he has 



628 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



spent the whole of his life to almost the present time in the coun- 
ties of Monroe, Mercer and Summers. Thirty-five years of his life 
has been devoted to the ministry of the gospel. His great influence 
for the good will be felt for many generations, and we doubt if 
there has ever been a man in all this region of the State who is as 
favorably known, or known in any wise, to as many people as is 
Mr. Campbell. When he left West Virginia he had been in the 
active ministry for a longer period than any other man now ac- 
tively engaged in the ministry of the gospel in the southern part 
of the State, and, perhaps without exception, in the State. 

Cary C. Campbell, the youngest son of Rev. J. P. Campbell, is 
now a citizen of Bristol, Tenn., being engaged in the mercantile 
business at that point. He was educated at the Concord Normal 
School, and took a business course at Dunsmore Business College, 
in Staunton, Virginia, graduating in 1899. He then located at 
Hinton, becoming the stenographer for the writer during the cam- 
paign of 1900, when he was chairman of the Democratic State 
Executive Committee. He was one of the most correct and efficient 
stenographers in the country, and a young, manly man of most 
excellent habits and of high moral character, being a man of ex- 
ceedingly honorable and manly instincts. He has recently united 
with the church of his father's belief at Bristol. He is a young 
man that will make his mark and a good citizen. 

Mr. Campbell's other son, James, married a daughter of Hon. 
J. A. Meadows, of Peterstown, and is a resident of and in business 
at Athens, West Virginia. One daughter, Gertrude, married 
Charles A. Settle, attorney at Fayetteville, West Virginia, who 
died a few years since. The other daughter, Hattie, married E. B. 
Trent, an employee of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, 
and resides in Hinton, West Virginia. 

Mr. Campbell believes in the true doctrine, and carries it into 
active practice — that the fact that a man is a minister of the gospel 
of Jesus Christ should not excuse him from the duties and obliga- 
tions of citizenship. He is a man of strong and clear personality, 
and his influence in any community where he is known is bound 
to be for the good and for the betterment of society in general. 
He has the moral convictions of a strong man and the manhood to 
expose them to the public gaze and to advocate them from the 
pulpit, as well as from his daily life, intercourse and associations. 

For instance, he is unalterably opposed to the liquor traffic in 
any of its forms. This opposition is not negative, but affirmative, 
and is shown by all his public utterances on all proper occasions. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



629 



There is no middle ground or shifting with him, but he makes his 
arguments a fight , straight from the shoulder; liberal, however, 
and extending to those who differ from him the same rights and 
privileges he claims for himself — not hide-bound, narrow or soured 
by prejudice, but broad, manly, honorable, eloquent and sincere. 

Those who know Mr. Campbell intimately are bound to admire, 
love and appreciate him, however widely they may differ from 
him. Such a man will leave his impress for the better for endless 
time. Since this sketch was written Mr. Campbell died, in 1907. 

WILLEY. 

There has been but one family of this name among the early 
settlers of this region. Eber Willey was born July 4, 1797, and 
died February 7, 1870. He was married twice. His first wife was 
a Miss Maddy, whom he married when twenty-four years of age. 
His second wife was Juda Symms. He was a native of Vermont. 
By his first marriage there was one son, Justus, born, who was a 
soldier in the war of' 1812. Eber Willey removed from Vermont 
in his youth with his parents to New York, and from thence to 
Greenville, in Monroe County, then Virginia, when twenty-two 
years of age. The founder of the Willey family in this country 
-was Eber Willey's father, Ahijah Willey, who was a native of 
England, and emigrated from that country, first settling in Ver- 
mont, and later settling in New York. He was a soldier in the 
American Revolution of 1776, and also a soldier in the war of 1812. 
His wife was Susan Grant, a relative of General U. S. Grant, the 
great soldier of the Union Army in the Civil War. The children 
of Eber Willey, the settler in this country, who removed from 
Greenville to the old Willey farm on the Wolf Creek Mountain, 
between the mouth of Greenbrier River and Wolf Creek in Green- 
brier District before the war, were Alma, Eber, Ahijah, Grant, 
John and Sira W. There was one daughter who married Samuel 
Henry Hartwell, a practicing physician living on the old Willey 
homestead. There was one other daughter, Susan, who married 
William S. Wykel, and they lived on the Wolf Creek Mountain. 
She died several years ago. Alma and' Eber Willey were both 
soldiers in the U. S. Army throughout the Civil War, and are now 
among the good citizens of the county. Grant was educated at 
the Concord Normal School, became a merchant in Hinton and 
died in 1892, having married a daughter of Samuel Huffman. 
Ahijah is a farmer residing in Greenbrier District. John is a citi- 



630 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



zen of Talcott ' District, postmaster at Talcott, proprietor of the 
Valley View Hotel, which he built in that town, and a farmer. 

Hon. Sira W. Willey is the most prominent member of the 
Willey family in this country. He has been an active and promi- 
nent man in the affairs of the county since its formation. He is 
a man of fine physique, a shrewd manipulator and politician and 
a man of character. In his younger days he was a constable of 
the county, a member of the Board of Education, Deputy U. S. 
Marshal, notary public, chairman of the Republican Executive 
Committee of the county, and he was appointed postmaster under 
President McKinley's first administration, which he held through 
that term, then through Roosevelt's first administration, and is 
holding now for the third term of four years each, making a total 
of twelve years in that important office. He has held the office of 
United States Commissioner under appointment from Judge John 
I. Jackson. He was at .one time a candidate for the Republican 
nomination for State Auditor, and was four times a candidate for 
the office of sheriff of Summers County, as well as a candidate at 
one time for representative in the House of Delegates. He mar- 
ried Clara J. Milburn. daughter of Squire Henry Milburn, of Green- 
brier District, and has one child. Rosalia May, who married Dr. 
Wykel, a practicing physician in the city of Hinton. He has held 
the position of deputy sheriff for one term of four years under 
M. V. Calloway, sheriff of Summers County. He is one of the 
leaders of the Republican party in the State. It was over his sec- 
ond appointment as postmaster at Hinton that the factional troubles 
arose between the Willeys and the Graham adherents. His record 
as an official has been efficient and honorable, and it is largely due 
to his enterprise, energy and judgment that the county now has a 
prospect of a government building in Hinton in the near future. 

Juda Simms. the wife of Eber Willey, was a daughter of Robert 
Symms, of Norfolk, Virginia. The wife of Robert Simms was 
Sarah Paynter, and they were from Rockbridge County, Virginia, 
and relations of Anderson Paynter and other Paynters throughout 
Raleigh and Fayette Counties. She was a sister of John Simms, 
one of the oldest residents of the county, who died in 1907 at Bar- 
ger's Springs, at the advanced age of eighty years, and whose son, 
Thomas, now lives at Greenbrier Springs : also of Allen Symms, 
another aged farmer, of Monroe County, and of Garland Symms. 
who was the father of James Symms, the enterprising citizen now 
residing at and owning the Lower Pack's Ferry on the old Red 
Sulphur and Raleigh Trunpike, and a part of the Rufus Pack farm. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 631 



He has been for a number of years ferryman at the mouth of Green- 
brier, a road surveyor in Greenbrier District, and has held other 
important positions. Ward Symms, of Junta, at the mouth of 
Indian, who now owns a part of the Fowler plantation, and Jack- 
son Symms, of New River, are also sons of Garland Symms. Eber 
Willey, the founder of the family in this county, was a Union man 
and opposed to secession. Before the war he was a lieutenant of 
the organized soldiers in Monroe County, known as the Monroe 
Guards, the place of muster being at Centerville, except once in 
three months, when they were required to muster at the Union 
Court House. This company was organized by Jack Hinton, the 
father of Joseph Hinton, Silas, William and John, and of which 
he was the captain and Air. Willey the first lieutenant. 

Captain Ahijah Willey, the founder of the Willey family in 
America, was a civil engineer by profession, a soldier in the Revo- 
lutionary W r ar and a captain of an artillery company in the war 
of 1812. His son, Eber Willey, the founder of the family in this 
county, was a soldier in the war of 1812, and was wounded at the 
battle of Plattsburg, being a member of the Twenty-ninth New 
York Infantry. Eber Willey, the second, was a member of Co. G 
of the Second West Virginia Cavalry in the Civil War. He was 
present when Robert Adkins was wounded. His own gun being 
disabled and struck with a bullet at the same time, he replaced it 
by taking the gun that fell from the hands of Adkins, who was 
disabled from further service. 

Alma Willey was a member of Co. F, Ninety-nrSt Ohio Infantry. 
The other boys were not old enough to be in the army. Justus 
Willey, the oldest of the sons of Eber Willey and the only son by 
his first marriage, was wounded in the battle of Chapultepec, in 
the Mexican War, from which wounds he died five years after- 
wards, being wounded in his thigh and on his head. 

Alma Willey resides in Forest Hill District, and is a farmer and 
miller. He and eight others, during the war, in the retreat from 
Lynchburg, went eight days without a meal, traveling from that 
place until they got to Boyer's Ferry in Fayette County, this being 
one of his experiences in war times. Eber Willey is a farmer in 
Greenbrier- District. 

The Willeys in this county and the Willeys in Morgantown in 
Monongahela County are direct descendants from the same original 
ancestors. Waitman T. Willey, of Morgantown, was a celebrated 
lawyer in" his day, a U. S. Senator and largely instrumental in se- 



632 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



curing the admission of West Virginia into the Union as a State, 
and in securing the proclamation by and recognition of the State 
by President Lincoln. 

There were two brothers of Ahijah Willey that came across the 
ocean to this country at the same time and settled in this country. 

Eber Willey, the settler in this country, had four brothers, 
Ahijah, who settled in Michigan; Joseph and Seth both remaining 
in New York State. Joseph was a preacher. Benjamin located at 
Chagrin Falls, Ohio, and died there during the war from the fever 
contracted in the army during the war. 

It will be noticed from the records of elections in Summers 
County that Hon. Sira W. Willey, in all his races for political 
offices, was on the side of the minority party, and that he ran 
ahead of his ticket on every occasion. Whenever the Democratic 
candidate knew that he had Air. Willey for an opponent, he always 
knew that he had a fight on his hands, while the majority against 
Mr. Willey was always less than 100, except on two elections. 
Captain A. A. Miller defeated him by 121 majority, while the 
Democratic nominee for the same office two years before had won 
out by 572 votes. In the race for sheriff between Willey and George, 
the latter's majority was only 128, Mr. George having on his ticket 
as deputies a man from each district. The deputies running with 
Mr. Willey were Chapman Farley, of Pipestem, and Samuel P. 
Bragg, of Green Sulphur. 

Air. Willey is the holder of the oldest title paper to real estate 
I have been able1:o find in this region. It is an original patent issued 
by Thomas Jefferson, Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 
bearing date on the 1st day of January, 1781, and the fifth year 
of that commonwealth. This patent was issued to Abraham Dick, 
assignee of John Robinson, the original founder of the Dick fam- 
ily in this country west of the Alleghenies, and was made by 
virtue of a survey made on the 6th day of May, 1772, and is for 
sixty-five acres. A portion of this patent is printed, with the old 
English "S," which resembles the "F's" of the present day, and 
in which governor is spelled governour, and is signed Th. Jeffer- 
son, in his own handwriting. The written portion of the document 
is perfectly plain and is in elegant handwriting. All this territory 
was then in Botetourt County. 

John Willey is probably the most powerful man, physically, 
in the county at this time. All. the Willeys of the county are men 
of great physical strength. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 633 



WILLIAM R. THOMPSON. 

William R. Thompson, the youngest son of Major Benjamin 
S. Thompson, came to Summers County, a youth of twenty years, 
immediately on its formation, and was prominently identified with 
the destinies of the county for twenty years. He came with his 
father and brothers, Cameron L. and J. Speed, studied law with 
the latter, with whom he formed a co-partnership for the practice 
of that profession under the firm name of Thompson & Thompson, 
which continued for several years. He taught school on the 
Swell Mountain at the John B. Walker place, and later a term 
in Hinton, studying law in the meantime. He was the first gradu- 
ate in law at the West Virginia University, taking the degree of 
LL.B. He practiced his profession in Summers and adjoining 
counties with his brother until later, when that firm was dissolved, 
and a co-partnership with James P. Pack, a son of Josephus B. 
Pack, the first county clerk, was formed under the firm name of 
Thompson & Pack. This partnership continued for a few years, 
until Mr. Pack retired from the profession, when the co-partnership 
of Thompson & Lively was entered into, Hon. Frank Lively being 
the junior member. This continued until after the removal of 
Mr. Thompson to Huntington, in 1894, to which place he removed, 
seeking a wider and more inviting field for his abilities. In 1880 
Mr. Thompson was elected prosecuting attorney of Summers 
County, which position he held for four years, ma*king a vigorous 
prosecutor. It was over his election that the celebrated contest 
of Fowler against Thompson was inaugurated. He was elected 
delegate from Summers County to the West Virginia Legislature 
in 1890, and was a prominent candidate for Speaker of that body, 
but was defeated by Hon. Lewis Bennett, of Lewis County. After 
his removal to Huntington, he formed a co-partnership with Hon. 
Z. T. Vinson, which continues to date. 

Mr. Thompson is one of the ablest and most widely known 
attorneys in the State, and has been retained and appeared in 
many of the most noted and vigorously contested causes, either 
criminal, chancery or civil, in all Southern West Virginia. He is 
one of the most eloquent advocates of the State, and has the repu- 
tation throughout the State of a chaste, eloquent, clean and at- 
tractive speaker. He is a careful lawyer, a close student and 
attentive to the interests of his clients. He has always been 
especially popular in the county among the people in general, as 



634 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



well as the members of the bar, by reason of his courteous man- 
ner, broad mind and sincerity. He has been frequently a candi- 
date for the higher offices ; at one time for Attorney-General of 
the State, and at the convention in 1904 for the Governorship, and 
whenever a candidate in the conventions of his party, the delegates 
from this county have at all times voted for him to a man, regard- 
less of the factional troubles which at one time rent the party in 
twain. In 1904 the friends of Mr. Thompson insisted on using his 
name as a candidate for the Democratic nomination for Governor, 
and he went to the convention at Parkersburg with a greater 
following than any other candidate, but was defeated by a com- 
bination of circumstances for which he was in no wise responsible. 
He has always been a Democrat, standing by his party in defeat 
as well is in victory. During the second Cleveland administration 
he held the position of Assistant United States District Attorney 
for the West Virginia District, with General C. C. Watts, Cleve- 
land's appointee, as U. S. District Attorney. 

While a resident of the county he took an active interest in 
its advancement and development. 

GRIMMETT. 

Joseph Grimm ett, Sr., was a native of Franklin County, Vir- 
ginia. His father's name was Greenberry Grimmett, and emigrated 
to the territory of what is now Summers County when Joseph was 
eight years old. The Grimmetts are of English descent. Green- 
berry Grimmett died on Elk Knob, and was buried there. He 
lived to be a very old man. His wife's name was Mihaly Stans- 
ley, of Virginia. Joseph Grimmett lived to be a very old man, 
dying at the age of eighty-eight years. He married Mary Gill, and 
lived all his life on Greenbrier River and its waters, raising a 
family of boys and girls, nine in all, four boys and five girls. The 
boys were John, Jordan, Peter M., and Joseph. The latter died 
in Illinois immediately after the Civil War. The daughters were 
Martha, who married "Squire" James E. Meadows; Sarah, who 
married Sam Henry Fox, of Brooks ; Amanda, who married James 
A. Fox, of Brooks; Nancy, who married J. M. Boone, who only 
lived thirty days after their marriage; and Mary, who married 
John M. Wyant. 

Joseph Grimmett was a man of fine natural sense ; was one of 
the oldest and best remembered justices of the peace of Summers 
County. For several years prior to his death he became totally 




HON. WM. R. THOMPSON, 
Lawyer, Orator and Legislator. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 635 



blind, but retained his mental faculties until his death. He ac- 
quired a large and valuable estate for those times, and while he 
had considerable business in the courts, he always, even in his 
blindness, attended court and gave his matters his personal atten- 
tion. He was a justice of the peace elected in Monroe County 
before the formation of the county, and held the office for a full 
term. His dockets were kept in intelligent shape, and were models 
for our justices of a younger generation. He died in July, 1896, 
His wife died six years before. 

A. G. Meadows, who was mayor of Avis for three successive 
terms, is his grandson. James E. Meadows, the present mayor of 
Avis, and who was justice of the peace for four years before his 
election, was his son-in-law. Peter M. Grimmett married Miss 
Maggie J. Watterson, was one of the best educated school teachers 
of the county at one time, a member of the Board of Examiners, 
and an intelligent citizen, died in March, 1887, aged thirty-seven 
years. Jordan Grimmett is a farmer residing on Wolf Creek, and 
married Rebecca Lowe, a daughter of Mathhew Lowe, and is the 
father of J. B. F. Grimmett, of the Hinton post office, and T. G. C. 
Grimmett, they being twin brothers ; Miss Alice, who married 
James A. Symms, who now lives at Pack's Ferry, owning a part 
of the old Pack lands ; Miss Lizzie, who married William Smith, 
now residing in Hinton, and Perry, a farmer, residing with his 
father on Wolf Creek. John M. Wyant married Mary Grimmett, 
and they were the father and mother of one daughter, Carry, who 
married R. R. Billingsley, a son of Samuel Billingsley. His first 
wife was Lucinda Noble, a daughter of Wiley Noble, of Forest 
Hill District. There are three grandchildren of Mr. Wyant living 
at this time — Texie Webb, Ollie Webb, who lives with her grand- 
father Wyant, and Harry Webb, who lives with Squire William 
C. Hedrick in Talcott District. 

MICHAEL HUTCHINSON. 

One of the oldest and most enterprising citizens the county 
has the honor of claiming was he whose name heads this sketch. 
He was the son of Adam and Mary Hutchinson, who in the early 
days settled on the "War Ridge" in Fayette County, near the 
Summers line, on land patented by the Commonwealth of Vir- 
ginia to him. Adam Hutchinson was born February 22, 1796, 
and died March 27, 1881. Mary, his wife, was a Coffman, and 
was born September 26, 1796; died March 11, 1886, aged ninety 



636 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



years. They were married on the 18th of February, 1819. They 
left three children. Janet, the daughter, married John Mognet, 
died without issue, leaving her husband, by her last will, her 
sole devisee and legatee. Michael Hutchinson was born Decem- 
ber 24, 1821, and died July 21, 1896. Mary C, his wife, was Miss 
Brooks, born April 2, 1839, and died in 1898. They were married 
January 28, 1859, residing all their life on Lick Creek and vicin- 
ity, and was one of the leading families of all that region. Mr. 
Hutchinson was a man of small stature, a quiet, unassuming gen- 
tleman, determined and positive in his character and convictions. 
For many years he was one of the leading officers of the Presby- 
terian Church, of which he and his wife were consistent members. 
He had no political ambition, and was never a candidate for office, 
and devoted his whole life to his business affairs and to his 
family. He, before the Civil War, purchased a water grist-mill 
at the forks of Mill Creek, where he rebuilt a modern, large, two- 
story frame grist-mill for the manufacture of flour, meal and feed, 
and which was the only mill for miles around, being the only 
turbine wheel in that section. He and Jackson Smith were the 
first merchants at that place, constructing the old log storehouse 
which was used until recent years. Mr. Hutchinson entered into 
the mercantile business with Smith ; later, with A. P. Pence ; 
later, with J. W- Miller, his son-in-lay. Directly' after the war 
there was no goods sold in that region; Dr. Samuel Williams 
hauled goods from Gauley Bridge, which he purchased from James 
H. Miller, and opened a store in the old log house, under the firm 
name of S. Williams & Co. It was operated by his brothers-in- 
law, John A. and James W. Miller, sons of Ervin B. Miller. Later, 
the enterprise was moved to the old log house at Green Sulphur 
Springs, and A. P. Pence & Co., M. Hutchinson being the com- 
pany, began their business, which continued a number of years. 

The water of each branch of the creek was utilized by him by 
erecting a dam across each some distance up the stream, and 
carrying the water by race down to the mill, where it was brought 
together and formed into one forebay, where the turbine wheel 
was located. He erected here a fine frame residence, which took 
the place of the old log habitation. The old log residence and 
storehouse were among the earliest buildings of the county, Jack- 
son Smith and M. Hutchinson having built the storehouse before 
the war. Later, Smith sold out his interest to Hutchinson and 
went West. After the death of Hutchinson in 1896, the business 
was purchased by Samuel P. Bragg, his son-in-law, who later 




DAUGHTERS OP MICHAEL AND MARY HUTCHINSON. 

Beginning at Left — Mrs. J. Ellen Miller, Mrs. Nora Gwinn, Mrs. Jennie Irene 
Miller, Mrs. Kittie Hutchinson, Mrs. Esta Bragg, Mrs. Eunice Cundiff. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 637 



sold to W. W. Gwinn, another son-in-law, who now conducts a 
mercantile business therein. In the later years of his life Mr. 
Hutchinson abandoned active business, but was engaged in the 
lumber and other enterprises. His children were Ed., who mar- 
ried a Miss Surbaugh, and was engaged in the stave manufac- 
turing business on Lick Creek, and was killed on the Thomas A. 
George place, by a stave block rolling from the montain and 
striking him unawares, killing him instantly. J. Ellen, the old- 
est daughter, married James W. Miller, the hotel man, and now 
resides in Hinton. Jennie Irene married A. E. Miller, general 
manager of the New River Grocery Co., and lives in Hinton; Miss 
Eunice married Frank C. Cundiff, the railway locomotive en- 
gineer, and resides in Hinton ; Miss Esta married Samuel P. Bragg, 
the merchant, and lives at Elton ; Miss Nora married W. W. 
Gwinn, the merchant, and also lives at Elton; Miss Lizzie mar- 
ried Theodore S. Webb, and removed to Colorado after his death, 
where she died recently. John A. Hutchinson married the other 
daughter, Miss Kitty, and they live at Alderson. 

Mr. Hutchinson, at his death, was one of the wealthy men of 
the county, and left a considerable estate. Before he died he exe- 
cuted his last will and testament, by which he names James H. 
Miller executor, and left his property practically equally to all 
his children. This will was probated, and is of record in the 
county clerk's office of this county. 

FERRELL. 

James Ferrell was one of the oldest settlers in this region of 
country. He was born near Forest Hill, then Monroe County, in 
1807. The family lived there until he was about grown. His 
father's name was William Ferrell. At the age of his majority 
he removed with his family to Coal River, but he returned alone 
and determined to seek his permanent residence near LoAvell, and 
hired himself to an old Dutch settler by the name of Conrad Kel- 
ler, who had settled near the present village of Lowell, Conrad 
Keller being the ancestor of the present Keller generation of Sum- 
mers County. 

James Ferrell, after working for Keller for some time, married 
one of his daughters, Elizabeth, in August, 1831. Soon after their 
marriage they settled on what is known as the old James Ferrell 
farm, on Greenbrier River, back of the Big Bend Tunnel, which is 
still owned by the two grandsons of James Ferrell, E. D. and 



638 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



James W. Here James Ferrell began life in the woods, the farm 
being bought by Conrad Keller and given to his daughter, Eliza- 
beth, the purchase being from a man by the name of Sawyers. 
James Ferrell was the father of two sons, the elder dying in in- 
fancy, and the second, D. K. Ferrell, lived to the age of twenty- 
seven years. He married Celia A. Meador, daughter of Hon. 
William Meador, of Bluestone, and to them were born three sons, 
the first being deadborn, and the other two, J. W. and E. D., are 
the representatives of the Ferrell family and live at the old an- 
cestral home. 

J. W. Ferrell, the elder, married a daughter of S. K. Boude, who 
is a sister of our circuit clerk, Walter H. Boude, and E. D. 
Ferrell married a daughter of I. G. Carden, late deputy sheriff, 
all of whom are still living, except the oldest, of J. W. Ferrell's 
children, who died in infancy. 

James and Elizabeth Ferrell lived to a very old age, the latter 
living to the age of eighty-five, and the former to the age of 
seventy-six. After the death of D. K. Ferrell, his widow married 
R. H. Shumate, a son of Anderson Shumate, of Giles County, Vir- 
ginia, and to them were born six children, all of whom are still 
living. One married W. F. Shumate, of Hinton, and another mar- 
ried James E. Ford, of Hinton, and are now living in that city. 
Two of the children are living in Giles County, Virginia, A. E. 
Shumate and Mrs. Loue H. Alvis ; two reside in Lynchburg, Dr. 
C. R. Shumate and Mrs. Rosa L. Paris. Mrs. Celia A. Shumate, 
the widow of D. K. Ferrell, afterwards Shumate, died February, 
1888, and her husband, R. H. Shumate, in 1890. 

Messrs. J. W. and E. D. Ferrell, who reside on the old home- 
stead, are among the most enterprising and thrifty citizens of the 
county. The ferry at the place is known as Ferrell's Ferry. E. D. 
Ferrell was asssessor of Summers County for four years, begin- 
ning January 1, 1901, ending December 31, 1904, with John W. 
Harvey, of Jumping Branch, as his deputy. 

NATHANIEL ALLEN. 

One of the oldest and most respected of the early settlers of 
Summers County was Nathaniel Allen, who resided at the time of 
his death and for many years before on top of the Big Bend Tun- 
nel-. He was born in 1811, and died June 11, 1903. He was married 
when twenty-one years of age. He resided seven years at the place 
where he was born, then located on Big Bend Tunnel, near Green- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 639 



brier Springs, where he resided until his death. He raised eight 
children, Hon. A. A. Allen, who married Miss R. J. Wyant ; 
James M.,. who resides near Forest Hill, and who married Miss 
Caroline Hutchinson; W. S. Allen, who died in the government 
service of the United States ; John G. Allen, who married Miss 
Susan Hedrick, and lives at Flat Top, in Mercer County; Miss 
Elizabeth, who married Deputy Sheriff William C. Hedrick; Miss 
Sallie, who married John F. Lowe ; Misses Susan and Mary F. 
died, unmarried. 

Mr. Allen was a very devout Methodist, and resided near the 
famous old Pisgah Church, and was one of the pillars of that 
congregation. He attended the Methodist meetings far and near, 
and was individually delegated to represent his denomination in 
the church conferences. This old church building was originally 
built of logs as a Methodist Episcopal Church. After the seces- 
sion of the Southern church, the old building went to the Northern 
branch. After the war a new frame church building was erected 
by the Methodist Episcopal Church South. This is one of the 
ancient graveyards of the county, located at this old church, which 
is entirely filled with graves. Mr. Allen's history and life are 
indelibly linked with this organization. He was a quiet man, but 
upright in all the walks of life. 

His son, A. A. Allen, known as Archie, resides at the old 
homestead, and is one of the leading citizens of the county, and 
is probably the oldest public school teacher in the county. James 
M. Allen, the land assessor, placed a re-valuation on all the real 
estate in Summers County for taxation purposes, being appointed 
by the Governor in 1889. His valuation seemed to have been en- 
tirely satisfactory, and there was less dissatisfaction from his 
judgment and decision than from any other assessment which 
has ever been made. This family of Aliens is of English de- 
scent, and there are a number of the younger generation scattered 
throughout this section, all of whom are good, law-abiding citizens. 
Fletcher Allen is a son of James M. Allen, residing in Forest Hill. 

KAYLOR AND HIX. 

In the settlement of the territory of this country around New 
Richmond, there are a number of old families identified who have 
disappeared, and we have nothing but tradition. Among them 
are Mathias Kaylor, born February 10, 1748, in Germany; died at 
the age of ninety years. He settled at the mouth of Farley's Creek, 



640 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



opposite New Richmond,, a little below. Katherine Kaylor, his 
wife, was born March 20. 1760, in Germany; married April 11. 
1780. There are a few descendants of these German settlers yet 
in the county. 

Michael Kay lor, a son of Mathias, was born April 26, 1784, 
and married Christiana Adkins, born September 27, 1785. Michael 
Kaylor at one time owned 1,700 acres of land on the Hump Moun- 
tain, extending to Lick Creek. 

Susan and Love Kaylor were twin daughters of Michael Kay- 
lor, and were born August 30, 1781. Love Kaylor married John 
Hix, and was the grandmother of Robert Hix, the present over- 
seer of the poor of Green Sulphur District. 

William Kaylor a descendant of the original Mathias Kaylor, 
lived until he was killed, about two years ago, on the Hump Moun- 
tain, near Meadow Creek, when he was shot to death by one 
Bennett. He was tried in the Circuit Court of Summers County, 
in 1905, convicted of manslaughter, and sentenced to the peniten- 
tiary for the minimum term. 

John Hix, the original Hix ancestor of the honorable family 
of that name, was a native of Monroe County, Virginia, now West 
Virginia, and settled at Green Sulphur Springs. He was killed 
by a bull in 1807, near the residence of the Hon. M. Gwinn. John 
Hix, Jr., son of the John Hix above referred to, was born August 
31. 1778, in Cumberland Count)-, Virginia, and died on the farm 
on which Robert Hix now resides, near Xew Richmond. William 
and Andrew Hix were twin sons of John Hix, Jr.. born July 27, 
1823. Andrew died in 1900. He was a brave Confederate soldier 
under McCausland. William is still living, and is the father of 
Robert Hix. William Hix is one, if not the oldest, of the citizens 
now living in Green Sulphur District. 

He has a wonderful recollection of things which are apparently 
ancient to the younger generation. He remembers distinctly see- 
ing Indians, in his boyhood days from his father's farm, on their 
way to Washington City. He was then about fourteen years old, 
and it was about the year 1837. The three brothers, John, William 
and Andrew, each lived to be very old men. They were Demo- 
crats in politics before the war, and continued their affiliations 
with that party during their entire lives. William resides with 
his only son, Robert, who is one of the leading citizens of Green 
Sulphur District, one of the leaders of the Democratic party, 
member of the Executive Committee, and a very loyal citizen, but 
not an office-seeker, never having been a candidate for any office, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 641 



although he permitted the use of his name as deputy for Mr. 
O. T. Kesler, in his last race for the shrievalty. 

In religious affairs Mr. Hix and all of the family are identified 
with the Missionary Baptist Church. Robert married a Miss 
Lusher, daughter of Thomas D. Lusher. John Hix, Jr., left the 
following family: Elizabeth, born October 13, 1804; Catherine, 
born November 27, 1806; Michael, born January 4, 1809; John, 
born December 5, 1811; Adeline, born July 18, 1816, who married 
John Duncan, who lives at Green Sulphur Springs. William and 
Andrew were twins, born July 27, 1823. William Hix married 
Jane Kincaid, September 17, 1845, and the following children were 
born to them: Martha, born July 7, 1850, now deceased; Robert, 

born January 1, 1852; Susan, who married Mr. Edwards, 

born October 3, 1853 ; John L., born November 20, 1856, now de- 
ceased; Virginia, who married Robert Gwinn, born March 3, 
1861 ; Minerva Ella married Charles Withrow, and was born Au- 
gust 3, 1853. The wife of William Hix died December 29, 1828. 
Michael Hix, living on the Hump Mountain, a son of Michael, 
who died during the war, is also of this family. He was a brave 
Confederate soldier and a good citizen, as was also Andrew Hix, 
his uncle, who was severely wounded during the war. One of his 
daughters married George W. Ayres. John Hix lived on the 
Swell Mountain at a very high point, where, at one time, the 
lightning struck his barn, killing one son and severely wounding 
another, Marion, who now lives near Hinton. John Hix was a 
president of the Board of Education of Green Sulphur District, 
as was also his son, James M. Hix, who now lives on Lick Creek — 
another of the soldiers of the Confederacy. 

No one by the name of Hix was ever known to vote any ticket 
except the Democratic. Michael Hix, Sr., married Jeriah Dun- 
can, who lived to be a very old lady, near Lick Creek, adjoining 
the S. F. Taylor place. 

KELLER. 

Conrad Keller, the founder of the family west of the Allegheny 
Mountains, was a German. His son, Abram, went on further 
west and settled in Gallia County, Ohio. Two sons remained in 
the Lowell settlement, one raising a family in the old log farm- 
house near the present railway station, his widow being Polly 
Milburn, and whose son, Henry Keller, resides on the same farm 
on Keller's Creek, where the sulphur spring is located. This spring 



642 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



was discovered by Henry Keller and improved by him, and is a 
very strong sulphur water, but we are unable to give the analysis. 
A number of visitors have been entertained at the place, but Mr. 
Keller, not being disposed to open up the place as a resort, it has 
not been largely patronized. George Keller, his uncle, lives on 
the opposite side of the creek a few hundred yards from Green- 
brier River on the other part of the old Keller plantation. Andrew 
Gwinn married a daughter of Polly Keller, who was a very sturdy 
pioneer lady, and used her freedom of speech to her satisfaction 
on all occasions. One time she had had some talk about one of 
her neighbors, Henry Gwinn, who brought an action for slander 
in the circuit court. She employed a lawyer, came to court with 
her retainers and brought a large chest filled with groceries and 
food, which she had carried up to the court house, fully prepared 
to sustain her forces during the litigation. The lawyers inter- 
vened, and the troubles were settled, however, in her favor, in a 
trial before the court. She was a lady of strong character, and on 
- one occasion, when the railroad company was trespassing on what 
she conceived to be her domain and invading her rights, she 
secured her old mountain rifle, went out to the land lines, remain- 
ing however, on her own side of the fence, took steady aim and 
ordered the railway forces to clear out, all of whom took to the 
woods at a long run, and the boss landed at the court house, de- 
manding a warrant, but was persuaded out of the notion. She was 
known to be thrifty and always had considerable money, several 
hundred dollars of which was stolen from her house where she 
had it concealed. Her husband died many years before she did, 
after which she took charge of all the affairs, managed the farm, 
fed her stock and did a man's work. She was woman of strong, 
but generous character, and with womanly virtue and instincts. 
She was a sister of the late Henry Milburn, and was raised on 
Greenbrier River. The only ancestors of this old generation of 
settlers still residing in the county by the name of Keller is the 
venerable George Keller, his son, the Rev. Wallace Keller, and 
his grandson, the store manager for Johnson, Miller & Co. at Low- 
ell. His daughter Sail} 7 - lives at Pence Springs, having married 
Sheriff O. T. Kesler. George Keller married a daughter of Jessie 
Beard, Miss Madora. There was a Keller settlement on Symms' 
Creek, in Galia County, Ohio. 

The original settler in this country was Conrad Keller, who 
came from Germany and settled in the Valley of Virginia. There 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



643 



he raised a family, among which there were three boys. One set- 
tled in Pennsylvania ; one removed to Indiana, and another, Con- 
rad, settled at Lowell; and his son, Abram . Keller, married Susanna 
Newsome, a French woman and sister to General Newsome, of 
Gallipolis, Ohio. Abram Keller, who settled in Gallia County, 
Ohio, raised fourteen children. One of his son's name was George, 
who was born before he settled in Ohio; the others were born 
afterward. The removal to Ohio took place about the year 1817. 
Newsome is an old name up in the Lick Creek settlement. The 
place now owned by Harrison Gwinn on the mountain between 
Lick Creek and Duncan's Creek is known as the Newsome place. 



J. E. C. L. HATCHER. 

J. E. C. L. Hatcher was born on the 6th day of June, 1843, in 
Jumping Branch District, Summers County, West Virginia. He 
is a man of original native ability, although he claims to have 
had no education except what he secured through his own efforts. 
He was a son of Edmund Hatcher, who was one of the early 
settlers of that region, and who removed to that place from Frank- 
lin County, Virginia. 

John Edward Charles Lewis, the subject of this sketch, came 
with his parents to what is now Summers County when a boy. 
He was a brave Confederate soldier, fighting four years through 
the Civil War, and since that conflict has been a member of the 
Republican party and a leader in its councils, independent, how- 
ever, and voting for those whom he believes will give the people 
the best administration in local governmental affairs. 

In 1900 he was a candidate for the nomination of justice of the 
peace, but was defeated in the convention. He promptly went 
to work and got out petitions by his neighbors, by which means 
he secured his name to be placed on the ticket, and was voted for 
at the election in the fall, and, to the surprise of every one, was 
elected by a good, creditable majority, and held the office for four 
years, and has ever since been known as "Squire" Hatcher. He 
was a great debater, going to the school houses where the boys 
held debates and joining with them, and was quite entertaining. 
He engaged in the manufacture of brandy for a number of years 
after the war, taking out, however. Government license. He is an 
honest, loyal and patriotic citizen. 



644 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THOMPSON. 

With the formation of the county, the building of the C. & O. 
Railway and the developments following, there came within its 
borders many new citizens, some from adjacent counties and the 
immediate section, some from other States, and some from other 
parts of our own State. Among the latter was Major Benjamin 
S. Thompson, a native of Kanawha County, but who settled among 
us directly from Kentucky, where he had sought a new home after 
the devastations of the Civil War. He with his sons, Honorables 
Cameron Lewis Thompson and Wm. Roote Thompson, located in 
Hinton in 1874, engaging in general business pursuits, Hon. C. L. 
Thompson in the publication of the "Mountain Herald," and Hon. 
Wm. R. in the practice of the law with his brother, J. S. Thomp- 
son, who also settled in the county about the same time, and who 
was assistant prosecuting attorney to W. G. Ryan, and one of the 
first lawyers to locate in the county. 

Major Benjamin Stanton Thompson was born at Coal's Mouth 
(now St. Albans), Kanawha County, Virginia, March 26, 1818. 
His parents were Hon. Philip Rootes Thompson and Elizabeth, his 
wife, whose maiden name was Slaughter, she being the daughter 
of Robert Slaughter, of "The Grange," Culpeper County, Virginia. 

Major Thompson received his education from tutors in his 
father's family, and at William and Mary College, Williamsburg, 
Virginia. He studied law, and it was his purpose to make it his 
profession; but his father died after a few days' illness, and this 
event changed the course of Major Thompson's life. He inherited 
the home place, "Muccomore Castle," and became a farmer, which 
occupation he continued in until 1861, when the Civil War came 
on and he joined the Confederate Army, and was made captain 
and quartermaster of the 26th Virginia Regiment, Infantry, Col- 
onel John McCausland. He continued with his regiment until after 
the surrender of Fort Donelson, but when the regiment was or- 
dered back to Virginia, he was ordered to remain and report to 
General S. M. Barton, commanding a brigade in the Division of 
Major General Carter L. Stevenson, and later was commissioned 
a major. Major Thompson remained in the army until after the 
surrender of Lee at Appomattox. 

In the summer of 1865 he returned to Coal's Mouth, Kanawha 
County, and lived there until 1867, when he moved to Kentucky 
and engaged in merchandising. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



645 



In 1874 he returned to West Virginia, and took up his resi- 
dence at Hinton, Summers County, where he resided until 1898, 
when he moved to Huntington, West Virginia, where he now lives 
at the ripe old age of eighty-eight years. He was postmaster at 
Hinton during the first administration of Cleveland, and filled the 
office to the satisfaction of the people and the Government. He 
also filled the office of mayor of the city of Avis after the expira- 
tion of his term as postmaster of Hinton, and was the mayor at 
the date of the consolidation of the towns of Old Hinton and Hin- 
ton by Special Act of the Legislature in 1897. 

He was also candidate for clerk of the county court against 
E. H. Peck in his first race in 1876. Major Thompson is a true 
type of the old loyal Virginia gentleman, fast disappearing from 
the land. His wife is a direct descendant of the famous generals, 
Charles and Andrew Lewis, and is now eighty-seven years of age ; 
and both of these old people aided largely in founding the county. 
They are now residing in Huntington, surrounded by their chil- 
dren, enjoying the evening of useful lives well spent. They are 
still active in their enjoyment. 



CAMERON LEWIS THOMPSON. 

Cameron Lewis Thompson was born at Coal's Mouth (now St. 
Albans), Kanawha County, Virginia, and was the eldest child of 
Major Benj. S. Thompson. He was educated in the public schools 
and at the Lewisburg Academy, Greenbrier County, Virginia. 

At the age of eighteen he joined the Kanawha Riflemen, Con- 
federate Army, April 17, 1861, which company was one of the ten 
companies forming the 22d Virginia Infantry, Confederate Army. 
At the close of the war he was a captain, serving on the staff of 
General Wm. Terry Pickett's Division, C. S. A. He was cap- 
tured at Appomattox C. H., April 9, 1865, and paroled in May, 
1865, and went to Cincinnati, Ohio, and worked in a hardware 
store at $35.00 per month, and paid $30.00 per month board. He 
lived in Cincinnati four years, and afterwards moved to Mayfield, 
Ky., where he engaged in merchandising until compelled by ill- 
health to move to a higher climate. He came to Hinton, Sum- 
mers County, West Virginia, February 1, 1872. It was his inten- 
tion to make the law his profession, but in December, 1873, at the 
request of the Hon. Frank Hereford, and other influential men of 



646 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the Democratic party, he was induced to start a weekly news- 
paper at Hinton, and before the first of June, 1874, the "Mountain 
Herald" made its appearance as a weekly Democratic newspaper. 
It was not Mr. Thompson's intention to continue in the active 
management of the paper longer than necessary to find a compe- 
tent man for the work, but circumstances ruled otherwise, and he 
continued to publish the paper until September, 1885, when he 
sold the "Mountain Herald" to Major E. A. Bennett, and pur- 
chased the Huntington "Advertiser," and continued in control of 
that paper until 1892. 

In 1888 he took up his residence in Huntington, West Virginia, 
and has made his home there ever since. Mr. Thompson was one 
of the pioneers of the city of Hinton, and labored earnestly for its 
growth and development. In looking over the old files of his pa- 
per, the "Mountain Herald," we are forcibly reminded of his loy- 
alty to his town by article after article editorially bringing to the 
attention of the public the advantage to investors and settlers to 
be derived by locating in the new and growing city of the moun- 
tains, giving the city and the people the benefit of a fine advertis- 
ing of inestimable value to any community. 

He also took an active interest in politics, being a staunch sup- 
porter of the Democratic faith, the editorials of his paper being 
strong and clear cut. That paper, while under his editorial con- 
trol, was ably conducted, and was one of the cleanest papers ever 
printed in our State. W e are under obligations to Mr. Thompson 
for the use of the files of this paper during the time of his publica- 
tion, which have been of much use to us in the chronicling of the 
events during the years of its publication. 

Mr. Thompson was in the seventies a candidate for the nomi- 
nation for State Senate on the Democratic ticket, and later for 
State Auditor, but the combinations against him were more than 
he could overcome. In 1892 he was appointed to a position in the 
office of Hon. I. V. Johnson, Auditor, which was one of the most 
lucrative in the State. Since the expiration of his term he has 
made his home in the city of Huntington, where he has met with 
great business success, and is now one of the wealthy men of that 
city. 

During his residence in Hinton Mr. Thompson owned and re- 
sided on the brow of the hill overlooking Avis, where Dwight 
James now resides, and the new high school is being built.. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



647 



JOSEPH A. PARKER. 

Joseph Alexander Parker was born in Monroe County in 1863, 
the same year the State of West Virginia was formed, and, as the 
Colonel suggests, "two great events in the same year." At the 
age of five years he, with five other small children, was left an 
orphan, depending on the care of a widowed mother, and their pri- 
vations were many. He walked four miles to the country schools, 
from which he received a fair common school education. 

The first position he ever had was with C. -C. & L. A. Xickell, 
at NickelFs Mills, in Monroe County, as a laborer in a flour and 
grist mill, at five dollars per month, and boarded at home, walking 
six miles each day to and from his place of employment, begin- 
ning work at seven o'clock. From this job he saved enough money 
to pay his tuition at a business school then being taught by B. F. 
Humphries, at Nickell's Mills. By working at night — sometimes 
all night — and on Saturdays driving teams to the railway at Ron- 
ceverte and Fort Springs, he paid for his board and school sup- 
plies, until he graduated, receiving from this school his diploma. 

He then struck out in the world for "fortune and fame/' being 
recommended to John Cooper, the Hinton merchant, by his former 
employer. He came to that city, then only a good-sized village, 
the 30th of May, 1882, then having a capital of S3. 50 cash. On 
June 1st. the following day. he began work with Cooper & Ad- 
ams (Adams being the later W. W. Adams, attorney, of Hinton), 
at $8.00 per month and board. He continued in this employment 
eight months, and he then accepted a position with E. H. Peck in 
the county clerk's office, as deputy. We next find him clerking 
in a dry goods store for Jake A. Rirte, on the opposite side of the 
street from where Colonel Parker's big stores are now located. 

Col. Parker began business on his own account in August. 1884. 
with a capital of $300.00, and with many obstacles in his way. and 
with much opposition ; but he has succeeded beyond his own ex- 
pectations, and is now one of the leading business men of the 
county, being engaged in various enterprises, and his success in 
his chosen course demonstrates the fact that the road to opulence 
is open to all. 

He built and operated the first successful opera house in the 
county, relying entirely on his own judgment, and is now enlarg- 
ing and modernizing the building into one of the best in the State. 



648 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



He is a large dealer in and owner of real estate in the city of 
Hinton, owning two hotels, a saloon, a grocery store and a cloth- 
ing and general store, is a director in the National Bank of Sum- 
mers, and is connected with various other business enterprises. 
He has a great deal to do with the improvements of the town, but 
generally looks after the interest of Mr. Parker first. He believes 
greatly in the philosophical proposition that "He that tooteth not 
his own horn, the same shall not be tooted." His business judg- 
ment has from his success been demonstrated to be of the first 
order. In politics he adheres -to the Democracy. He is now one 
of the wealthiest men in Hinton and the largest real estate owner. 

Colonel Parker's Military Record. 

He enlisted as a private, March 22, 1887, in Company "D," 2d 
Regiment, Infantry, when Jas. H. Miller was captain, afterwards 
lieutenant colonel. He was corporal, 1888-90, and sergeant, 1893. 
He attended the Washington Centennial in New York City, with 
Captain Albert Sydney Johnston, of the Union and Hinton com- 
panies. He attended the unveiling, of the Lee Monument in Rich- 
mond as first sergeant, Company D. He was promoted to captain 
of his old company, October 24, 1890; major of the 2d Regiment, 
May 23, 1897; lieutenant colonel, September 9, 1890, and colonel, 
September 9, 1898. He, with Companies D, H and F, of the 3d 
Battalion, was the first to reach the place of rendezvous at Kana- 
wha City, in 1898, when the call was made for volunteres in the 
Spanish-American War. He volunteered his services on the con- 
dition that he receive one of the battalions, he being in command 
of the 1st and 2d Regiments. ■ When the regiment was made up 
he could only get a captaincy, and, being of heavy weight, could 
not endure the walking; therefore, he did not leave with the vol- 
unteers, but was ordered to take command of the National Guards 
of the 2d Regiment. 

These promotions were made on examinations before a regular 
board appointed by the adjutant general, and on merit only. Col- 
onel Parker has the distinction of holding the only two practice 
marches by battalions ever held in West Virginia — first from Par- 
kersburg, West Virginia, to Elizabeth, twenty-seven miles from 
Parkersburg, in July, 1899; and from Charleston to near Belpre, 
O., twenty-three miles from Charleston, spending six. days at each 
camp. He also held the only regimental encampment ever held 
in the State, at Charleston, West Virginia, in August, 1900. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 649 



Having served over twelve years in the National Guard, being 
a man of large business interests, he resigned and retired from the 
active service, and was placed on the retired or superannuated list, 
still at this date holding his rank and commission, but not in 
active command. 

On September 1, 1900, he sailed from New York City for Paris, 
France, and attended the International Exposition held in that city 
in 1900, making both trips across the sea as "Chairman on Enter- 
tainment" by unanimous election of the passengers. He has vis- 
ited all the expositions on this continent, and has been an ex- 
tensive traveler, seeking information by travel of the affairs of the 
world in general. He was at the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 ; 
Paris, France, 1900; Buffalo, N. Y., 1901; St. Louis, Mo., 1905. 

He was the owner of the Opera House in Hinton at the time 
of the disaster on July 4, 1894, out of which has grown numerous 
actions at law, and from which has grown quite bitter controver- 
sies, legal and personal, with a number of the legal fraternity and 
others, the Fletcher case being one of the most famous of many 
litigated cases of the records, and an account of which is given 
more in detail. His experience in the courts has been varied, with 
the scales balancing from one side to the other. Frequently the 
Colonel acts as his own counsel, with the usual results, that it gets 
him in deeper for more costs and greater trouble to get extricated. 

Colonel Parker has never been" a politician, but was the nomi- 
nee of his party in 1894, but was defeated in the landslide in which 
the entire Democratic ticket went down. 

C. L. PARKER. 

C. L. Parker is a brother of Colonel J. A., also a native of 
Monroe County, becoming a citizen of this county early in the 
eighties. In 1892 he was elected constable for Greenbrier District. 
* holding that position to the general satisfaction of the people, and 
so well that at the expiration of his term of four years he was 
again elected as justice of the peace for his district, being the 
nominee of his party, at which the election took place, and is now 
serving his second term of four years. He has made a faithful and 
enterprising official, conscientious and scrupulous, having been re- 
versed but a few times, and his judgments have uniformly been 
affirmed by the higher courts. He has also been elected a member 
of the city council, which position he now fills, and is the best 
street commissioner the city ever had. 



650 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



He married Miss Ludie McVey, a daughter of Rev. G. W. 
McVey, and is one of the enterprising citizens of the city of 
Hinton. 

GOOCH. 

One of the first settlers and pioneers of Hinton was Dr. Ben- 
jamin Porter Gooch. We think he was the first. He was the first 
physician who located or practiced medicine in the town and 
mountainous country surrounding. He was a native of Charlottes- 
ville, in Albemarle County, Virginia, and the son of Hon. Alonzo 
and Mary J. Gooch, born on the 14th clay of July, 1843. 

In 1857 his father emigrated from Virginia to Princeton, in 
Mercer County, and engaged in farming and in the practice of the 
law. While a boy Dr. Gooch matriculated at Allegheny College, 
and located at Blue Sulphur Springs, in Greenbrier County, then 
Virginia — a college then established, where many of the after- 
celebrated history-makers and statesmen of the State were edu- 
cated, including Hon. A. N. Campbell, Governor Henry Mason 
Mathews, Rev. Dr. G. W. Carter, and others. Dr. Gooch's edu- 
cation was interrupted by the declaration of hostilities between 
the States in 1861, and he enlisted in the Confederate Army when 
a boy of seventeen years of age, in Company "A," 17th Virginia 
Cavalry, commanded by Colonel Henderson French. At the Bat- 
tle of Lewisburg, May 22, 1862, he was dangerously wounded by 
a ball passing through his face, and later he received four other 
severe wounds, In 1863 he was promoted to sergeant major of 
his regiment. In August, 1864. after being wounded, he was cap- 
tured at the Battle of Moorefield, in Hardy County, and trans- 
ported to Camp Chase, Ohio, where he remained a prisoner of 
war until March, 1865. After his discharge from prison he re- 
turned to his home in Mercer County, with no property only an 
honorable and manly record. 

On the close of the war he began the study of medicine with 
Dr. Isaiah Bee, the famous war surgeon, at Princeton, Mercer 
County, after which he attended the Virginia Medical College, at 
Richmond, Va., from w r hich he graduated in 1870. One of his 
professors was the celebrated surgeon, Dr. Hunter McGuire. He 
began the practice of the profession at Big Bend Tunnel soon 
after his graduation in 1871. which was then in course of construc- 
tion by the C. & O. R. R., and from thence came to Hinton, when 
the town consisted of one log house, and the population of one 
lone family, he being the first settler of the city. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



651 



On the 22d day of May, 1879, he was married to Mrs. Ellen 
Adair Waldo, daughter of James Adair, of Giles County, Virginia, 
and widow of Captain Thomas P. Waldo, of Company "C," 17th 
Virginia Cavalry. Immediately after his marriage he permanently 
located in Hinton, then a town only in name. 

Dr. Gooch practiced his profession actively and energetically 
as long as his health permitted. In politics he was an earnest 
Democrat. In 1876 he was elected to the House of Delegates, 
and re-elected again in 1878, sending two full terms, and was an 
able, actrve and zealous officer, loyal to the people and faithful to 
his county and constituents. 

In 1899 he professed religion under the ministry of Rev. How- 
ard, the famous evangelist, and was baptized by immersion by the 
Rev. Dr. Follansbee, of the M. E. Church South, of which de- 
nomination he became a member, and of which he remained a 
consistent one until his death, which occurred February 12, 1892. 
He was a Mason, one of the charter members of Whitcomb Lodge, 
Xo. 62, now Hinton Lodge, No. 12, and was buried with Masonic 
honors at his father's residence near Princeton. He was survived 
by his wife and two sons. The latter both followed in the foot- 
steps of thfir father, studied medicine,, and became physicians and 
surgeons of note — J. Adair Gooch, the older, the first child born 
in Hinton or Avis, and Carlos A., the younger. 

Dr. Gocch was a man of strong personality, and a useful man 
in the community which he aided to found — void of deceit, and de- 
spised hypocrisy. He stood by his friends, and his enemies knew 
where to find him. He Avas a friend of the poor, and there are 
few persons who had occasion to command his services who do 
not remember his leniency and kindness of heart. His practice 
extended for miles back from the river. All public enterprises re- 
ceived aid and encouragement from him. 

Some years before his death he and Dr. John G. Manser formed 
a copartnership, and practiced their profession together under the 
firm name of Manser & Gooch. 

The wife of Dr. Gooch still survives him, and is noted for her 
earnest church and charitable works. She was one of the founders 
of the Missionary Baptist Church at Hinton, and was one of the 
charter members of that society, with Rev. Martin Bibb for pas- 
tor. It was through the efforts of this little band of Christians 
that the first church edifice was erected in Hinton, which is now 
known as the First Baptist Church of Hinton. 

The two sons of Dr. Gooch both graduated in medicine at the 



652 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Medical University of Louisville, after having taken a general 
course at the State Normal School at Athens. J. Adair was for 
some time a partner with Dr. Palmer, one of the professors at 
Louisville. Later he returned to Hinton, and located finally at 
Beckley, when he married in 1899, at which place he died on the 
19th day of June, 1900, from paralysis, leaving a widow surviving 
him, but no children. His remains were buried at Hinton, with 
Masonic honors. 

Dr. Carlos A. Gooch married and located at Oak Hill, W. Va., 
in Fayette County, where he is engaged in the successful practice 
of his profession, being a physician of fine attainments and a gen- 
tleman of character. 

This family of Gooches are direct descendants of the Governor 
of Virginia of that name, and the people of that name have been 
makers of history of the old Commonwealth as well as of the new 
one. 

CAMPBELL. 

A. L. Campbell, the present and third surveyor of the county, 
resides on a farm on Greenbrier River, inherited by him from his 
father, Clemens I. Campbell, of Gap Mills, Monroe County, who 
was born near Red Sulphur Springs, May 3, 1821, and married to 
Elizabeth Gwinn, near Lowell, January 18, 1848, and to whom 
there were born ten children, as follows : Elizabeth O., Mary R., 
who married the late M. A. Manning, of Talcott ; Charles C, Sa- 
rah E., Elizabeth G., Lewis R., John C, Andrew L. and Wilber G. 
His father was a farmer and stock man. and the owner of consid- 
erable property. He died January 17, 1873, and his wife died De- 
cember 8, 1880. 

Andrew L. Campbell was born February 16, 1865, near Gap 
Mills, in Monroe County, and moved to Summers County on Sep- 
tember 17, 1886, and married at Barger's Springs, May 25, 1887. 
to Miss Eliza McKendree AYebb, to whom have been born ten 
children, as follows: Carrie L., born May 19, 1888; Isaac, Sep- 
tember 9, 1889; Calvin I., March 23, 1891*; Ethel E., August 18, 
1893 ; Jennings Bryan, June 16, 1895 ; "William P., November 19, 
1887; Howard M., December 27, 1900; Myrian A., December 8, 
1902; and Adrian Bernice and Charles Basil, twins, February 24, 
1905. 

He was the nominee of the Democratic party for county sur- 
veyor in 1896, and again 1900 and 1904, and is now serving his 
third term, and is an efficient and reliable officer, having the full 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 653 



confidence of the people, being nominated each time without op- 
position. His predecessors have been John E. -Harvey, who served 
two terms and declined a further nomination, and the other, the 
late Michael Smith, was the first surveyor elected in the county, 
but was defeated for the nomination in 1888 by Air. Harvey, hav- 
ing held the place since 187-1 — sixteen years. Joseph Keaton was 
appointed on the formation of the county, and held until the first 
general election. 

The farm of 350 acres now owned by Air. Campbell, and on 
which he resides, is known as the Caruthers farm, and was pat- 
ented by the State of Virginia, by grant to Alathias Kessinger, on 
the 8th day of August, 1789, by Governor James Wood, of the 
Commonwealth of Virginia. The branch running through the 
low^er end of the farm is known to this day as Kessinger Branch, 
named after the patentee, Air. Kessinger, and the famous run 
known as Dog Trot is at this farm. A part of the second house 
built on this farm is still standing, and is over 100 years old. It 
has a chimney of stone at foundation 7 x 10 feet, and burned wood 
seven feet long. There are but three of the original corner trees 
still standing on this survey. One large oak on the bank of the 
river was cut by A. L. Campbell in January, 1905, and the growths 
were counted, which showed it to be 320 years old. The tree was 
perfectly sound, but had been dead for some years, and was cut 
to save the stump as a corner and landmark of the survey. 

This farm was at one time owned by Caruthers, who built the 
famous "Caruthers Road" to it from the Salt Sulphur Springs, 
which was then owned by Caruthers & Erksine. The road was 
built in order to make an outlet to the springs for the transporta- 
tion of the produce grown on it to support the springs. 

The famous "Stony Creek Canyon" is near this place. In 1905 
the excellent frame farm house on the farm was destroyed by ac- 
cidental fire, and Air. Campbell has since erected a new frame resi- 
dence on the site of the one destroyed. Air. Campbell is* one of 
the enterprising farmers of the county, maintaining twenty-seven 
cows on his farm, on which he erected a concrete silo, the sec- 
ond in the county, A. E. and C. L. Miller building the first. He 
is a Bryan Democrat, and an elder in the Lowell Presbyterian 
Church. He is a breeder of fine stock and practices scientific farm- 
ing, as well as a scientific surveyor and engineer. He laid off and 
planned the original plat of the Greenbrier Springs property for 
the present company. On the organization of the Summers Dairy 
and Food Co., he was elected a director and president. 



654 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



PECK. 

The Peck family is one of the oldest families in the upper and 
middle New River Valley, They are of German stock. 

Jacob Peck, the original ancestor, was born in Germany in 
1696, and came to America and settled in Pennsylvania first, and 
from there came to the Valley of Virginia, near Staunton, in 1744. 
He married Elizabeth Burden, a daughter of Benjamin Burden, 
who was famous as the agent of Lord Fairfax. Benjamin Burden 
was from England. He met John Lewis, of Augusta, at Williams- 
burg, and went on a hunt with him in the valley, and captured a 
white buffalo, which he shipped to Governor Gooch, whereupon 
the Governor, being so well pleased, issued his patent to Burden 
for 100,000 acres of land on James River, and these lands on the 
James he gave to his daughter Elizabeth, who married said Jacob 
Peck. Jacob Peck left a grandson. Benjamin, who settled on Sink- 
ing Creek in 1785, in Giles County, and who left three sons, Jacob, 
Benjamin and Joseph. John and Benjamiri married sisters, Eliza- 
beth and Rebecca Snidow, daughters of Colonel Christian Snidow, 
and Jacob married Melina Givens. 

John Peck left the following sons : Wm, H., Christian L., Jo- 
seph A., Dr. Erastus W. and Charles D. His daughters were 
Mary, who married Benjamin Burden Peck; Margaret, who mar- 
ried Chas. L. Pearis : Clara, who married John H. Vawter, the 
celebrated surveyor of Ham's Creek, in Monroe County; Jose- 
phine, who married a Phillips ; Ellen, who married Dr. R. B. Mc- 
Nutt: Martha, who married Judge John A. Kelly, and one other 
daughter, whose name is not known, who was married to Edwin 
Amos. 

William H. Peck, son of John, settled in Logan County; hence 
the Logan generation of Pecks. Joseph A. emigrated and settled 
in Texas. Christian L. settled in Giles County, but left a son, 
Chas. Wesley, a Southern soldier, and John H. 

Dr. Erastus Peck was thrice married, and left ten children: 
Amos, Josie, Chas. D., Jas. K., a daughter, Lucretia, who married 
Dr D. W. McClaugherty ; another, Maggie, married Judge Hugh 

G. Woods; Clara married J. Kyle McClaugherty ; Fannie married 
John Adair, and Rachel, a Fulton. 

Benjamin Peck left six sons; Pembroke P. Peck, James 

H. , Jacob A., Erastus and B. Wallace. The latter was killed at 
Gettysburg. Charles L., Erastus H. and Pembroke P., the latter 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



655 



being the father of Dr. Shannon P. Peck, and E. H. being the 
father of Dr. Benj. W. Peck, of Raleigh County. Pembroke P. 
Peck married Anna E. Butt, a daughter of Dr. Butt, of Centre- 
ville, Monroe County, and in addition to Dr. S. P. Peck, they have 
three other sons: D. Harry Peck, of Hinton ; Leonidas M. Peck, 
of Lewisburg, and Dr. Robert C. Peck. P. P. Peck came to Hinton 
at its formation, and was deputy county clerk and school land 
commissioner, one of the first, and has been engaged in the mer- 
cantile business. E. H. Peck was clerk of the county for twenty- 
four years, and lives in Hinton. He was also agent for the Cen- 
tral Land Company for many years. Charles L. Peck was the 
* founder of the Hinton "Independent," and is now living in Pipe- 
stem District. 

MAJOR RICHARD WOODRUM. 

Richard Woodrum resides on Wolf Creek, in the Forest Hill 
District side of the line, on the farm descended to him from his 
father, John Woodrum, one of the first settlers of that neighbor- 
hood. His mother was a Miss Juda Meador. He was seventy- 
two years of age on the 5th day of September, 1905. Major Wood- 
rum enlisted in the Confederate Army at the breaking out of hos- 
tilities between the North and South in 1861, and was discharged 
on the 24th day of July, 1865. He was a volunteer in Captain L. 
C. Thrasher's company, attached to Edgar's Battalion ; was first 
promoted to lieutenant, and then to a major in the regular army, 
on account of bravery in action. Major Woodrum was one of the 
bravest soldiers that ever carried a gun. He was captured and 
imprisoned in Johnson's Island, Camp Chase, Pt. Lookout, Ft. 
Delaware, Morris Island, and at the mouth of the Savannah River. 
He was one of the immortal six hundred which were held and 
treated as retaliation prisoners. They were held after the Treaty 
of Peace had been concluded in April, 1864, until July 24th of the 
same year, when they were discharged and exchanged. He was 
in a number of the principal battles of the Rebellion, including 
the Battle of the Wilderness, and Seven Days around Richmond. 

He married a Miss Eliza Maddy, of Gallipolis, Ohio. He has 
two sons, Charles L. and John F. Woodrum. John F. resides at 
this time in the city of Hinton, and is employed as a trainman 
on the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, having volunteered and served 
out his term of service, being one of the soldiers who fought in 
the Philippine Islands after their purchase from Spain. Charles 



656 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



L. was one of the best educators of the county, a very finely edu- 
cated civil engineer, and is now applying himself to agricultural 
pursuits, he. and his father residing on the same farm, which is 
practically owned by the former at this time. 

Major Woodrum is one of the few rebel soldiers in this sec- 
tion who came out of the war a Republican, having been a Repub- 
lican practically since the formation of that great party, being* 
a high tariff advocate. After the war he met with considerable 
financial disasters, by reason of his indorsements for his friends 
and unfortunate financial speculations. While he always votes the 
National Republican ticket and supports its policies, he is not a 
hide-bound politician, and in local matters usually votes in the in--* 
terests of his county, and stands by his friends. He is a brother 
of William Woodrum, who was slain during the war at the 
mouth of Hungary's Creek, and a cousin of the famous Allen 
Woodrum, a color bearer, who was shot to death in the Battle of 
Cold Harbor. 

Armstrong Woodrum was an uncle of Major Woodrum, who 
died at a very advanced age. 

THE GWINN FAMILY. 

I am of the opinion that the first settlements in this county 
of the Gwinns and Grahams, Kellers and Ferrells, on Greenbrier 
River, near Lowell, was a little later than that fixed by Mr. Gra- 
ham in his History, although I have no positive evidence that I am 
correct, and make this statement from the circumstances of the 
dates of the land patents to those first settlers being at a later 
date than the date fixed by Mr. Graham. However, it is very 
probable that the first settlers located and remained some years 
on the grounds before carrying their occupation of the lands into 
patents. 

Samuel was the first person of that name to settle in this 
county, and the evidence seems to show that he, with the Gwinns 
and Grahams, came together from the same section in Ireland to 
this country, and first located in the same neighborhood, on the 
Calf Pasture River, in Virginia, from thence moving across the 
Alleghenies on to the Greenbrier, near Lowell, his emigration 
gradually proceeded West after the danger from the Indian depre- 
dations had partially disappeared, and at the termination of the 
Revolutionary War of 1776. 

Samuel Gwinn, Sr., was the original ancestor of all the Gwinns 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 657 

in this section of the country. The name seems to have been 
originally Gyn, and the Gwinn ancestor was evidently Irish. The 
name has since been spelled Guin, Gwin, sometimes Gwinn, and 
Mr. Walter M. Gwynn now and has been for a number of years 
spelling the name Gwynn, and claims to have some authority that 
that was the original proper spelling of the name; however, the 
records in this country do not bear it out. The patents or grants 
of lands from the Commonwealth of Virginia to Samuel Gwinn, 
the founder of the family in this country, spelled his name Guin, 
as I have examined his signature to the last deeds executed, when 
he was ninety odd years old. 

The first grant of land to Samuel Gwinn was by the Gov- 
ernor of the Commonwealth of Virginia, in the year 1796, and 
was for a tract of land on Greenbrier River, on which Andrew 
Gwinn, with his son James, now resides. I have examined a num- 
ber of patents for lands in that neighborhood to Samuel Gwinn 
and others, which are all ancient documents, written in elegant 
handwriting on the dressed skin of some animal, and are in a per- 
fect state of preservation. Mr. Andrew Gwinn has some eight or 
ten of these old documents, which he prizes very highly. Samuel 
Gwinn was the father of a number of sons, the oldest of whose 
name was Samuel, who also settled at Lowell, but afterward re- 
moved to Lick Creek, purchasing the old Claypole and other pat- 
ented lands at Green Sulphur Springs, and surrounding lands. 
This Samuel also left a son, Samuel, who died in the year 1904, 
at the advanced age of over ninety years, he being the father of 
Mrs. A. C. Lowe, and was living with her at the time of his death. 
He resided part of the time in the West, and a part of the time at 
the farm owned by him at Indian Creek, in Monroe County. 

Ephraim J. Gwinn was one of the sons of Samuel Gwinn, the 
second, who succeeded him in the ownership of the Green Sulphur 
Springs properties, which were originally patented by James Wood, 
Governor of Virginia, to Samuel Hollingsworth, in 1795, for 480 
acres, which included the ground on which the Green Sulphur 
Spring is located, and adjoined John Osborne, Henry Stockwell, 
James Claypool and John Ferris. These seem to have been resi- 
dents of the State of Delaware, and had acquired some kind of 
ownership and property in these lands beyond that part of Lick 
Creek. Claypool seems to have been an original patentee, John 
Osborne and others conveying the property to said Samuel Gwinn, 
of Monroe County, and the price paid was five shillings. The 
Claypool patent was dated in 1793, for 250 acres. Samuel Gwinn 



658 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



was a Revolutionary soldier, and fought for the independence of 
the United States against his former sovereign, King George. 

Another tract of ninety-five acres was patented to Samuel 
Gwinn by Governor James Pleasant, on the 2d day of April, 1824. 
Governor Edward Randolph issued his patent to Samuel Gwinn 
for one of the tracts near Lowell, on the 18th day of March. 1789. 
The James Claypool patent, above referred to, was dated March 
17, 1798, for 285 acres, at Green Sulphur Springs. Governor Jas. 
P. Preston granted to John Duncan 19^2 acres on the 17th day of 
August, 1816, on Lick Creek. Thomas N. Randolph, Governor of 
Virginia, granted to Samuel Gwinn, November 1, 1821, thirty-one 
acres. James Monroe, Governor of Virginia, and afterwards Presi- 
dent of the United States, granted to Samuel Gwinn, December 2, 
1800, five acres. John M. Gregory, Lieutenant Governor of Vir- 
ginia, granted to Ephraim J. Gwinn, August 30, 1842, twenty-one 
acres. On July 31, 1779, John Osborne conveyed to Samuel Gwinn. 
for five shillings, 245 acres. 

All of these lands acquired on Lick Creek by Samuel Gwinn 
were conveyed by him to his son, Ephraim J. Gwinn. on October 
20, 1829. Andrew Gwinn. who now lives at Lowell, known as 
"Long Andy," is now eighty-four years old, and was a cousin of 
the E. J. Gwinn referred to, he having been born on December 3, 
1821, the year that Napoleon Bonaparte died on the Island of St. 
Helena. Andrew Gwinn is one of the largest and most prosperous 
farmers in Summers County. He has no family except one son, 
James Gwinn, who lives with his father at Lowell, within three 
hundred yards of the birthplace of Andrew, his father. Samuel 
Gwinn, the senior, or second, moved from the Lowell settlement 
to Lick Creek, in the year 1800, and died there March 25, 1839, in 
the ninety-fourth year of his age. His five sons were named Mo- 
ses, Samuel, Andrew, John and Ephraim. above referred to, and 
there were three daughters. One, Ruth, married James Jarrett, 
Sr., of Muddy Creek, and was the mother of the late James and 
Joseph Jarrett. John Gwinn resided in the Meadows, where 
Squire Wm. G. Flanagan now resides, until his death. He left 
several sons — Eldridge, Lockridge. Austin, Laban and Brecken- 
ridge — all of whom are now dead, leaving numerous descendants, 
a number of whom reside in the Meadow Creek country. 

E. J. Gwinn had three sons, Hon. Marion Gwinn and ex-Sheriff 
H. Gwinn, who still own principally the lands acquired by their 
father, Ephraim, and Samuel Gwinn, Sr., in the Lick Creek neigh- 
borhood. The other son. Augustus, died during the war of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 659 



Rebellion, while in the military service. It was E. J. Gwinn, while 
drilling for salt, who discovered in its place sulphur water, and 
from which the Green Sulphur Springs is the result. 

Some seventy-five years ago a man by the name of Shrews- 
berry, who was in the salt business on Kanawha River, visited 
Lick Creek for the purpose of hunting and seeing the indications 
of the old buffalo and deer lick on Samuel Gwinn's place, he was 
of the belief that there was salt in the earth at that point. He 
went back to Kanawha on a pack horse, brought across the Sew- 
all Mountain and War Ridge a piece of steel and the instruments 
with which to drill for salt. They rigged up a windlass with a 
rope made from hemp raised on the farm, attached the windlass,- 
which was a long sour wood sapling, to a beam of wood fastened 
in the forks of two trees, the rope to the end of the sapling, and 
the iron or steel, some two feet long, to the end of the rope. With 
this rude machine the Green Sulphur Springs was discovered. 
They first dug an ordinary well down some sixteen feet, when they 
struck a hard rock. They drilled on through this down a distance 
of about forty-five feet, when, instead of striking salt water, they 
struck the sulphur. Having failed to strike salt, they decided to 
utilize the sulphur, and taking a large hollow sycamore tree, they 
cleaned it out, sunk it into the well onto the top of this rock, after- 
wards placing on top of this hollow tree the dressed stone which 
now forms the basin of that magnificent spring. 

E. J. Gwinn resided on this place until the time of his death 
in 1888, dying at the age of seventy-seven years. Sketches of the 
lives of his two sons, Messrs. Marion and Harrison Gwinn, are 
given elsewhere in this book. 

The Gwinns are a numerous race of people, and are now lo- 
cated throughout the country in adjacent counties, and others in 
the far West, all of whom derive their descent from these two 
brothers, who originally settled at Lowell. The statements here- 
tofore given are concerning the older brother, Samuel, and his 
descendants. 

James Gwinn, the other brother, located in his cabin about a 
mile and a half up Keller's Creek from Lowell, at what is known 
as the Laban Gwinn place. He left four sons, Robert, James, Jo- 
seph and Samuel, and died many years prior to the death of his 
brother. It was his son who was appointed ensign at the first 
court held in Monroe County. The door of his cabin was built 
of heavy bolt fastenings as a protection from the Indian maraud- 
ers. Joseph settled farther up Keller's Creek, and left a large fam- 



660 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ily of children, among whom were Joseph, Sylvester. John.. James 
and Augustus. Augustus Gwinn owned a fine farm at the mouth 
of Muddy Creek, in Greenbrier County, on which he constructed 
an elegant brick residence, and at which place he died a few years 
ago, leaving two sons, Messrs, George Gwinn. a wealthy hardware 
merchant at Alderson, and J. Clark Gwinn. a very successful mer- 
cantile traveler. Samuel Gwinn. the son of James Gwinn. Sr.. 
married Magdalene Johnston, and settled on the James Boyd farm, 
at the west portal of the Big Bend Tunnel, on Greenbrier River, 
five miles from its mouth. He moved to the West in the vear 
1830. 

John Gw^inn, Sr., who resided in the Little Meadows, was a 
large land-owner and a great litigant over land titles, especially 
with Wm. T. Mann. "Billy Tom.'' He was a. justice of the peace 
before the Civil War. and all the Gwinns were Democrats before 
the war, and were Union men. but those who were of the army 
age entered the Confederate service, and after the war some ad- 
hered to the old faith, while others followed into the ranks of the 
new party, the Republican. Among these was Squire John Gwinn, 
who was a liberal and conservative man. His descendants still 
live in that region, including his grandsons. A. L.. M.. Grant. La- 
ban and John G. son of Austin. His son Lockridge raised twenty- 
one children to maturity. 

William Gwinn. a brother of Avis Hinton. died at Meadow 
Creek within the last few years, and he and his brother. Lewis 
Gwinn, who still resides there, owned the land on which Meadow 
Creek town is built. The sons of William Gwinn were Samuel H. 
and William, merchants, and Everett, a farmer and school teacher. 
His daughter married John W. Quinn. a merchant of Missouri, 
There are descendants and connections of the Gwinns who settled 
at Lowell in many parts of the United States. Some settled in 
Indiana. Illinois and Iowa. Ephraim J. Gwinn rode from Lick 
Creek to Iowa, where he purchased lands for his two sons, Sam- 
uel and James, and his daughter. Mrs. Marshall Richmond, where 
they afterwards settled, and their descendants still live and flour- 
ish. 

ANDREW GWINN. 

Andrew Gwinn. who now resides at Lowell, is eighty-four years 
old. He was the first justice of the peace ever appointed in the 
county, but resigned. He was born within three hundred yards 
of the place where he now resides, in an old log house, but now 




z - 



2 £ 



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II It $ 




2 - 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



661 



lives in a fine modern brick building, erected about fifteen years 
ago, within the recollection of the younger generation. He was 
a justice of the peace before the Civil War. 

I have before me nine patents or grants, as originally executed 
by the respective Governors of the Commonwealth of Virginia, 
which were handed me this day by James Gwinn, the only son 
and child of Andrew Gwinn, and who inherits the sturdy honesty 
and manhood of his sire. One of these patents is signed by Edm. 
(for Edmund) Randolph, and is dated on the 10th day of Decem- 
ber, 1787, and is headed as follows : 

"Edmund Randolph, Esq., Governor of the Commonwealth of 
Virginia. To all whom these presents shall come (the V being 
in the shape of an T) greeting: Know ye, that by virtue of a cer- 
tificate in — - — , of settlement given by the commissioners 

for adjusting the titles to unpatented lands in the District of Au- 
gusta, Botetourt and Greenbrier, and by consideration of the an- 
cient composition of 2 pounds sterling, paid by Samuel Gwinn, 
into the treasury of the Commonwealth, there is granted by the 
said Commonwealth unto the said Samuel Gwinn, assignee of 
James Henderson, a certain tract or parcel of land containing 400 
acres by survey, bearing date the first day of June, 1784, lying 
and being in the county of Greenbrier, beginning, etc.'' This was 
a ''tomahawk or corn" title, for which this certificate was given, 
on which the "patent" issued, and is the O. T. Kesler place, now 
owned by the Summers Dairy Company. Then follows the boun- 
daries. 

Another similar patent bears date on the first day of July, in 
the year of our Lord 1819, and of the forty-third of the Common- 
wealth, and is signed by Peter V. Daniel, as Lieutenant Governor 
of the Commonwealth of Virginia, and is issued by virtue of a 
Land Office Treasury Warrant, numbered 5768, issued October 
26, 1816, and grants unto Joseph Gwinn twenty-five acres in the 
county of Monroe, on the waters of Keller's Creek, a branch of 
Greenbrier River; another, which bears date on the 30th day of 
January, 1790, and was issued by Beverly Randolph, Esq., Gov- 
ernor of Virginia, and conveys unto James Gwinn sixty acres on 
Keller's Creek. Another of these patents is to James Gwinn, and 
is issued by Edmund Randolph, on the 8th day of November, 1787, 
and of the Commonwealth the twelfth, which is consideration of 
the ancient composition of 2 pounds sterling, paid by James Gwinn 
into the treasury. He was granted 400 acres by survey, lying in 
the county of Greenbrier, on Little Wolf Creek, adjoining the lands 



662 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of John Dickinson ; and another, issued by Peter V. Daniels, Lieu- 
tenant Governor, bearing date on the first day of July, 1819, to 
Joseph Gwinn, for eighteen acres on Keller's Creek. This creek 
seems to have been originally "Kelley's," but is now known as 
Keller's. And another patent issued by John Tyler, Governor of 
Virginia, who was later President of the United States, by reason of 
the death of William Henry Harrison, and is dated on the 10th 
day of January, 1810, which was four years after the establishment 
of Virginia as a separate State. This conveys unto William Gra- 
ham a tract or parcel of land containing 200 acres, inclusive of a sur- 
vey of 153 acres. A part thereof was formerly granted to Rich- 
ard Skaggs, by a patent bearing date the 12th day of February, 
1795, who conveyed the same to said Graham by deed — ten acres. 
Another part thereof is a part of a tract of 105 acres, formerly 
granted to Joseph Pearson by patent dated the 10th day of July, 
1797, who, together with his wife, Charlotte, conveyed the ten acres 
aforesaid to said Graham, by deed bearing date the 26th day of 
July, 1798; thirty-seven acres, another part thereof, was waste land, 
and was taken under Treasury Office Warrant, No. 3169, issued on 
the 29th day of May, 1801, all of which was in Monroe County, on 
Keller's Creek, a branch of Greenbrier River adjoining the lands of 
Conrad Keller, Samuel Gwinn, John de Boy and David Jarred. 
Then proceeds to give the boundaries and makes the conveyance to 
said William Graham. 

Another of these patents is dated on the 18th day of October, 
1787, by Edmund Randolph, Governor of the Commonwealth, unto 
John See, assignee of Peter Vanvibber, and the land lying within 
the county of Greenbrier on Greenbrier River, adjoining the lands 
of John Vanvibber, et al. ; and another of these patents, issued by 
James Wood, Esq., Governor of Virginia, in January, 1798, conveys 
to Samuel Gwinn 220 acres on Greenbrier River, adjoining William 
Graham. 

All of these are title papers and are as in good state of preser- 
vation as when issued; are written on parchment, some kind of 
skin ; the writing is excellent, plain and legible. One of the patents 
especially, I notice, came from an animal, and the holes made by 
taking out the legs still remain on the margin, and another hole 
in it made by taking the hide off the animal. It is unevenly 
trimmed, but all of them are finely dressed. We seldom see in 
these days and times better handwriting than that exhibited on 
these wonderful old documents. 

Mr. Gwinn is now the owner of all of this land and considerably 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



663 



more, he and his son being the proprietors of 2,000 acres, all in one 
body, at Lowell. 

I omitted one patent, dated the 5th day of August, 1802, issued 
by James Monroe, Governor of the commonwealth, and who was 
afterwards the fourth President of the United States of America. 
It conveys unto William and David Graham forty-three acres in 
the county of Monroe, on the south side of Greenbrier, adjoining 
the lands of Conrad Keller, Samuel Gwinn and John Perry, and 
is issued by virtue of two land office treasury warrants, one for 
ten acres, No. 11654, issued the 27th day of March, 1782, and 
thirty-three acres, No. 1859, issued on the 14th day of March, 
1796. I have another deed which is signed by Samuel Gwinn, the 
father of Andrew Gwinn, when he was eighty-four years old, and 
it is well written. It is witnessed by Joseph Alderson, George 
Alderson, John Gwinn and O. Towles, and bears date the 26th 
day of October, 1811, and is a conveyance from Samuel Gwinn, 
Sr., to his son, Samuel Gwinn, Jr., who was a brother of Andrew 
Gwinn, Jr., and died only a sort time ago. 

HINTON. 

Avis Hinton was the second wife of Captain Jack Hinton, 
whose first wife was a sister of Charles and John Maddy. She 
was a Gwinn, a sister of Enos, William, Lewis and Moses Gwinn, 
of Meadow Creek. She died on the 22d day of January, ■ 1901, 
aged ninety-one years. She was the owner of the tract of land on 
which the city of Avis was built, and she made her will in 1861, 
devising her property to her three sons, Joseph Hinton, Silas 
Hinton and William Hinton, Jr. This will is now being contested 
in the courts. The circuit court decided the contest in favor of the 
sons, and the contestant carried the case to the Supreme Court of 
Appeals, where it is now pending. The contest is prosecuted by 
her granddaughter through a former marriage with a Mr. Nickell, 
who lives in Kansas City. Evan Hinton, who died April 22, 1897, 
aged seventy-six years, and John Hinton were her stepsons by the 
first wife of "Jack" Hinton. Evan Hinton left three sons, Thur- 
mond Hinton, of Hinton ; John D. and Silas R. Hinton, of Madam's 
Creek, good citizens. William Hinton, Sr., now seventy-five years 
old, resides in Hinton. He is a son of David Hinton, of Monroe 
County. He has two sons, Maury D. and Lindley. He is the 
patentee of three valuable patents, a surveyor's compass, a monkey 
wrench and bottle stopper. The Hintons are English and came to 



664 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



this county from Rockingham County, Virginia. The will above 
referred to has recently been sustained by the Supreme Court of 
Appeals. 

HARRISON GWINN. 

Harrison Gwinn was a native of Lick Creek, in Green Sulphur 
District; was born on the 26th day of June, 1840, and is a son of 
Ephraim J. Gwinn and Racheal, who was Rachael Keller, of the 
Lowell settlement. He was born, raised and lived all his life on 
the farm on which the Green Sulphur Spring is now located. 

In 1868, he married a Miss McNeer,- a daughter of William B. 
and Elizabeth McNeer, who then lived on the farm now occupied 
by W. H. Ford. By this marriage he had one son, William E. 
Gwinn, who now lives at Thurmond, in Eayette County, and after 
the death of his first wife, Mr. Gwinn married Miss Salome Arga- 
bright, of Muddy Creek, in Greenbrier County. 

He was a Confederate soldier, serving throughout the four 
years of the Civil War, being a member of "F" Company, and 
attached to McCausland's Brigade. After the war he located on 
the Green Sulphur farmland has followed farming, cattle dealing, 
the mercantile and lumber business, in all of which he is engaged 
at the present time, his interests being large and varied. He is a 
man of kind and generous impulses, honest and upright, and has 
few, if any, enemies. 

At the foundation of the Bank of Summers, in 1893, he was one 
of the principal promoters, and was elected unanimously its first 
president, which position he held, as well as that of member of 
the board of directors, for thirteen years, and until that insti- 
tution was converted into a national bank, and taking the present 
name of the National Bank of Summers. At the time he took 
charge as president of this bank, banking in this country was a 
venture, as there were few in this region of the country, there then 
being two banks at Alderson, one at Hinton, and the next nearest 
were at Lewisburg and Charleston. He is conservative as a bank 
official and director, careful, judicious and reliable, regarding at 
all times the interests of the depositors, as well as the shareholders, 
and during the administration of its affairs while Mr. Gwinn was 
president, not a single debt was lost nor a single depositor had a 
just complaint on account of the administration of its affairs. 
Upon the conversion of that institution from a State into a National 
bank, he w r as unanimously tendered the presidency of the National 



MRS. AVIS HINTON, 
For Whom Avis was Named. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 665 



Bank of Summers by the board of directors, but by reason of ad-" 
vancing years and other financial interests of a personal character 
demanding his attention, and the distance at which he resided from 
the location of the bank office, he declined, to the regret of the 
stockholders and board of directors ; and to show the esteem in 
which Mr. Gwinn was held, on the 9th day of January, 1906, reso- 
lutions were adopted on the motion of Captain Charles S. Faul- 
coner, which were as follows : 

"Whereas, Harrison Gwinn, Esq., the president of this bank 
and the former president of the Bank of Summers from its founda- 
tion, and for the success of the institution he has ever been faith- 
ful and loyal, and in whom the board recognizes a gentleman and 
financier of honor, ability, loyalty, and that much of the success of 
the said Bank of Summers is due to the loyal devotion of Mr. 
Gwinn, its faithful official and president; and 

"Whereas, Said Gwinn declines the office of president of the 
National Bank of Summers of Hinton, as he conceives in the in- 
terest of the institution, by reason of his advancing age, other per- 
sonal business engagements and the long distance that he resides 
from its place of business : 

Be it Therefore Resolved, First, That it is with regret that we 
part with Mr. Gwinn, as president of this bank ; that it fully rec- 
ognizes in him a faithful citizen, an honest man, as well as an 
honorable financier of recognized ability and honor, well worthy 
of the confidence of his associates and of the public, and a true 
friend of this institution, and that the thanks of the bank, its share- 
holders and of the board of directors be extended to him. 

"Second. That a committee of three, to be composed of J. H. 
Jordan, J. A. Parker and C. S. Faulconer, be and they are hereby 
appointed a committee for the purpose, who shall provide, at the 
expense of the bank, a proper and appropriate token to be pre- 
sented by the bank to Mr. Gwinn, as some expression of its appre- 
ciation of his faithful discharge of his duties as its president for 
so many years. 

"Third. That a copy of these resolutions be furnished to said 
Gwinn, and that they be spread on the minutes of this bank." 

Mr. Gwinn still retains the position as a member of the board 
of directors, but declines any other official position with the bank. 
He is next to the largest stockholder in the institution. He is also 
a stockholder in the New River Grocery Company and in a number 
of other financial enterprises in the county. 

At the election held in 1892, he was elected sheriff of Summers 



666 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



County, and held the term for four years, with I. G. Carden and 
G. L. Lilly as his deputies. In 1900 he was re-elected for a second 
term, and held the position for another four years, -with J. W. 
Wiseman, Levi M. NeeLy, Sr.. and I. G. Carden as deputies. 

He is an enterprising citizen, a native of West Virginia, as well 
as of Summers County — a man of gentle character, kind, as a 
neighbor, esteemed by all of the region in which he resides. 

James Gwinn, his son, was the first assistant cashier of the 
Bank of Summers, but has resigned after several years' service, 
in order to assist his father in the conduct of his large personal 
business interests, and now resides at the old homestead. Wade 
Hampton Gwinn, another son. is an enterprising pharmacist, re- 
siding in the city of Hinton, and managing the business affairs of 
the Hinton Drug Company, a corporation. 

Mr. Gwinn now owns about 1,000 acres of real estate at the old 
homestead and neighborhood, the magnificent sulphur spring, 
known as the Green Sulphur Spring, and is also engaged in the 
manufacture of lumber ; owns and operates a steam grist mill, 
deals largely in stock, and takes considerable interest in securing 
improved breeds of cattle into his neighborhood, and he is also 
engaged in a general mercantile business. Wade H. Gwinn was 
elected recorder of Hinton in 1907. 



JOSEPH J. CHRISTIAN. 

This is one of nature's noblemen, a native of the old common- 
wealth, born on the 10th day of February, 1839, in Scott County. 
Virginia; moved with his parents to the foot of Bent Mountain, in 
Mercer County, when he was four years old. In 1856 he removed 
on to Xew River, and resided for a number of years with the late 
Allen L. Harvey. He now resides in the same neighborhood, one 
and one-fourth miles from New River. 

He was a soldier in the Civil War, volunteering at the declara- 
tion of hostilities, serving until the final surrender. He first vol- 
unteered with Captain Thrasher's company, which was the second 
company of Confederate soldiers organized from Monroe County 
in that war, and was attached to Wise's Legion. In 1863, at his 
request, he was transferred to Captain George's company, in the 
Sixtieth Virginia Regiment, by reason of his having five brothers 
in that company and two brothers-in-law. He was engaged 
in the majority of the great battles of this bloody conflict; 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



667 



was in the battle of Scarey, which was the first battle of the Civil 
War; received several slight wounds, but none of a serious char- 
acter. His father's name was John H. Christian. His mother was 
Prunella Abbott, his parents being buried at the old Jasper Smith 
plantation on New River, opposite GatlifFs Bottom. His grand- 
father on the mothers side was a soldier in the war against Eng- 
land of 1812. He has three children, Edgar, Etta Luberta, who 
married Lee Peck, a son of Christian Peck, of Monroe County, and 
Bernard Douglass Christian, a lad of twelve years. 

In 1892 Mr. Christian was the nominee of the Democratic 
party for commissioner of the county court of this county, 
and w r as elected by a flattering majority, defeating in that race 
his Republican opponent. In 1898 he was again elected, his sec- 
ond term of office expiring on the first day of January, 1905, having 
occupied the position as commissioner of the county court, and 
for the larger portion of its time its president for the period of 
twelve years, the only member who has filled two terms in suc- 
cession. In this position Mr. Christian has proven himself an 
honest official, and no charges have ever been brought against him 
for unfaithfulness to the public duties imposed upon him. 

His record should be a matter of pride to himself and to his 
posterity. He is a farmer by occupation, a Democrat in politics of 
the Bryan stripe, and a Missionary Baptist in his religious senti- 
ments, being a member of that congregation. He is a self-made 
man who has built himself up into the confidence of his fellow 
citizens, and in his older age has acquired a comfortable competence. 
He married Laura Zella Stafford, of Giles County, Virginia, on 
the 28th day of February, 1870. and now resides on his farm, 
twenty-two miles from Hinton. 

His brother, John H. Christian, was killed at the battle of 
Cloyd's Mountain, in the Civil War. Another brother still resides 
in Summers County, A. J. Christian, who was for a number of 
years overseer of the poor for Jumping Branch District. He is 
now engaged in the hotel business at Hinton, operating and run- 
ning the Riverside Hotel. For some years he resided in Raleigh 
County, during the development of the Piney region, and owns a 
farm in the Bluestone section. He was born May 25, 1843, and 
married Margaret Williams. They have nine children. Bell John- 
son, who married Green Hogan ; J. R., who married Ada Lilly ; 
Prunella, who married William Meadows, now deceased; Rox- 
anna, who married E. B. Deehart ; Willie, J. D., E. H., Clara Ver- 
million and W. L." Christian, remaining children unmarried. 



668 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY/ WEST VIRGINIA. 



J. THOMPSON HUME, M. D. 

Dr. Hume is a native of Culpepper County, Virginia, born Feb- 
ruary 5, 1855, and is a son of Dr. C. E. and Mary Emma Hume, 
his mother being Mary Emma Thompson. He graduated in medi- 
cine at the College of Physicians of Baltimore City in March, 1877. 
He for some time occupied the position of resident physician in 
the Woman's Hospital of Baltimore; removed and located at Hin- 
ton in March, 1888. 

In 1896 he was nominated by the Democratic party for the 
House of Delegates, to which office he was elected, that campaign 
being one of the hardest fought campaigns in the history of Sum- 
mers County politics. 

For four years he and Dr. J. G. Haley practiced medicine in 
this county under the firm name of Hume & Haley. Dr. Hume 
has been largely interested in the real estate developments in Hin- 
ton, and for a number of years was in co-partnership with the late 
Luther M. Dunn in the real estate business, and it was through 
their joint efforts that the large three-story brick store, office and 
hall building was erected on the corner of Second Avenue and 
Temple Street. He has made his home and identified himself with 
the interests of this county since his location, except for the period 
of two years spent at Newport News, Virginia. He has been en- 
gaged in the active practice of his profession since his graduation ; 
is one of the enterprising citizens of the county, as well as one 
of the strong practitioners of medicine and surgery in this section. 

He is of a family of doctors and surgeons, his father being a 
noted physician before him ; his brother Dr. W. W. Hume, now 
of Beckley, being a noted physician, as well as his cousin, Dr. 
W. E. Hume, the Quinimont surgeon. He is considered one of 
the ablest physicians in this section, as well as a safe, careful and 
conservative business man. 

He was married to Miss Grace Benedict, of Hamilton, Ohio. 
He is a Democrat in politics. 

DR. SHANNON P. PECK. 

This gentleman is a descendant of the Peck family of this region 
of the State, as well as a noted family of Southwest Virginia. He 
is a son of P. P. Peck and A. E. Peck, who were early settlers in 
Hinton. He is a native of Monroe County, born at Centerville, 
then Virginia, March 20, 1853. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 669 

He graduated in 1877 from the College of Physicians and Sur- 
geons of Baltimore City, and immediately located in Hinton for 
the practice of his profession in April, 1887. 

He was married on the 22d day of November, 1882, near Meadow 
Brook, Virginia, to Miss Alice Clemmer. He was appointed sur- 
geon for the C. & O. Railway in 1879, which position he retained 
until he retired, some four years ago, having charge of the surgical 
department of that great corporation from Clifton Forge to 
Charleston. 

Dr. Peck is a Republican in his political views, but is inde- 
pendent of the bosses, and usually votes to suit his own dictation, 
especially aiding the opposite party in local affairs, when in his 
opinion it is to the interests of the general public so to do. He 
was elected mayor of Hinton for two terms, and administered the 
affairs of that important office to the satisfaction of the public. 
Dr. Peck is one of the leading surgeons of this country. His great 
practice, by reason of his connection with the C. & O. Railway 
Company, brought him into prominence, which he has maintained. 

m He is one of the enterprising citizens of Summers County, being 
connected with the leading financial enterprises of the city of 
Hinton, and is a large and extensive real estate owner. It was he 
who first undertook the construction of an electric light plant for 
the lighting of the two towns. At his own expense and at his own 
risk, he put into operation the original electric light plant, which 
he maintained for a number of years, he being the entire owner. 
Later, he sold out to the Hinton Light, Ice & Supply Company, 
which concern was finally absorbed by the present Hinton Water, 
Light & Supply Company. 

He was one of the promoters and stockholders of the Hinton 
Water Works Company, is a stockholder in two of the leading 
banks of the city of Hinton and many other enterprises. 

Dr. Peck's ancestor was one of the organizers of the county of 
Monroe. Peck was appointed by the government to organize the 
county in 1799. An uncle, Charles L. Peck, lives at Tophet and 
assessed the real estate of the county in 1890, and founded the 
"Hinton Independent," a Democratic newspaper, in 1883, at Hinton. 

JAMES F. SMITH. 

James F. Smith, now one of the leading citizens of the county, 
is a native of Kanawha County, born near Brownstown. He has 
been for fifteen years in the service of the Chesapeake & Ohio 



670 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Railway Company, and is now, although mayor of the city of 
Hinton, still holding his position as freight conductor. He is a 
Democrat in politics, but never a partisan politician. In 1901 he 
agreed to make the race for mayor as the Democratic candidate, 
at the earnest solicitation of numerous citizens of the city, not 
being an office-seeker, and in this instance the office sought the 
man. That was a memorable campaign. A Republican leader, 
E. F. Smith, known locally by the name of "Fisher Smith," by 
reason of his questionable methods in politics, undertook to hood- 
wink the people by pretending to eliminate politics from town 
elections, and arrange for the railroad orders to agree on a ticket 
composed of some Democrats and some Republicans, but giving 
the Democrats a minority representation in the dispositions, and 
thus secure a ticket that would split and disrupt the Democratic 
organization. He had his ticket brought out by some kind of 
secret caucus, led by Captain Thomas Jackson, an ex-Democrat, 
for mayor, without the people having any voice in the selections. 
When the scheme was discovered, the purpose was apparent, and 
the Democrats at once called a meeting, and Mayor Smith was 
promptly- decided upon as the "man of the hour." A full Demo- 
cratic ticket was nominated, with R. F. Dunlap, the attorney, as 
recorder, and John Orndorf for sergeant. A very active campaign 
ensued, the plan and ticket of "Fisher Smith" having none of the 
elements of strength, although supported by the Republican lead- 
ers, and by reason of his having on the ticket some gentlemen who 
were Democrats and some who were on the political fence. Judge 
Heflin was candidate for recorder and C. H. Hetsel for sergeant. 
The result showed the wisdom of Mr. Smith's selection for the 
mayoralty candidate. 

At the end of Mr. Smith's first term he was again the choice 
of his party, being re-nominated over the popular hotel proprietor, 
John B. Parrot, and was again elected; W. L. Fredeking for re- 
corder, and R. T. Dolin, sergeant. 

Again at the end of his second term he was re-nominated by 
his party in 1905 over Mr. Parrot and elected. His third term 
began January 1, 1906, and at the expiration of same he will have 
served in the honorable capacity of mayor for a period of six 
years, his administration having been fair and intelligent and gen- 
erally satisfactory to his constituents. During his occupancy of 
this position he has not run regularly on the railway. Mr. Smith 
is a popular man, being an officer in the order of Eagles and one 
of its founders in the city, as well as the order of Elks. During his 



JAMES P. SMITH, 
Three Times Mayor of Hinton. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 671 



administration in 1905 the new city administration building and 
jail was built at a cost of $5,000, also the extension of the sewer 
system, at the lower end of town at a cost of $2,000.00. 

He has tried and disposed of a number of violations of the law, 
and his decisions have been complimented as just and intelligent. 
Mayor Smith's wife was a daughter of Richard Gayer, an Irish 
gentleman and one of the pioneer railroad men in Hinton, acci- 
dentally killed in the yards in that city about 1885. . 

THOMAS G. MANN. 

Thomas G. Mann, attorney at law, is a native of Greenbrier 
County, born and reared in that good old municipality. He was 
born July 29, 1859, attended the public schools and taught therein. 
He took the full course at the Concord Normal School, graduating 
therefrom with honor in 1881, and was one of the orators at the 
commencement, after which he taught for some time at the Green- 
brier, .White Sulphur, studying law in the meantime, and was 
admitted to the practice in 1884, and first located at Beckley, in 
Raleigh County, for the practice of his profession, but soon after 
re-located in Hinton, and has been one of Summers' substantial 
citizens. In politics he has ben an old-line Republican, and has 
done much work on the stump for his party. In 1890, under the 
administration of President Benjamin Harrison, he filled the posi- 
tion of Supervisor of the Census for the southern half of AYest 
Virginia, with headquarters at Hinton, George W. Brown being 
supervisor for the northern half. In 1896 he was a candidate for 
judge of the circuit court before the convention of his party, which 
was held at Alderson. On several ballots was only short one vote 
of the nomination, but by a combination was defeated by Judge 
J. M. McWhorter, of Lewisburg. In 1904 he was again a can- 
didate for the nomination, but withdrew by reason of the alleged 
methods adopted by those opposing him, and he came out boldly 
and supported the Democratic nominee, doing much towards se- 
curing his election. Colonel Mann is a political leader of good 
judgment and sagacity. Upon locating at Hinton for the practice 
of his profession, he formed a co-partnership with the late Colonel 
James W. Davis, of Greenbrier County, for a few months, other- 
wise he has followed his profession alone. Mr. Mann is a lawyer 
of ability and a forcible and logical speaker, a man of strong con- 
victions and fascinating personality, and has been engaged in the 
defense in a large number of the important cases tried in the county. 



672 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



His practice extends to the courts of Raleigh and Wyoming and 
in the Supreme Court of Appeals and the federal courts. He is a 
bachelor. 

CAPTAIN FRANK M. GALLAGHER. 

Hon. Frank M. Gallagher is the present member of the House 
of Delegates from this County, and is a railroad conductor, from 
which he receives the appellation of captain. He, like many of 
the statesmen and representative men of this country, was poor 
and reared on a farm, the date of his birth being April 16, 1853; 
place, city of Albany, N. Y., of poor but honest parents. In 1865 
he was hired as a farm hand at $14.00 per month and board, at- 
tending the common school in winter, his education having been 
begun and completed in the little red district schoolhouse. In 
1869 he abandoned his native State, and began, on November 10th, 
his railroad career at Jackson, Mich., as brakeman, where he con- 
tinued as brakeman, baggageman and conductor until early in 
1868, when he located at St. Paul, Minn., in the service of the 
Northern Pacific Railroad, in whose service he remained until 
1886, when he again emigrated to Richmond, Virginia, and through 
the good service of J. W. Hopkins secured employment on the 
Huntington Division of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Company, 
in whose employment he has continued to the present. 

He had the unusual distinction of having been placed in charge 
of a train of the Michigan Central Railroad when only eighteen 
years of age and when conditions were entirely different from 
what they are to-day. 

He is a great believer in organized labor, and has the unlimited 
confidence of that great army of the loyal yeomanry of the con- 
tinent, being the general chairman of the order of this State. At the 
session of the West Virginia Legislature in 1902-3 he was the legis- 
lative delegate of his and other organizations sent to look after 
remedial legislation beneficial to railway and other employees, and 
by his faithful and fearless loyalty to his trust, won the confidence 
of patriotic Union labor. 

He kept a minute diary of the proceedings and occurrences of 
that session, some of which are amusing to the uninitiated in 
present-day legislative methods. When he failed in securing the 
passage of the labor bills advocated by him, one of which was an 
amendment to the present fellow servant doctrine, as adjudicated 
in the State, he learned the reason why, and the methods of the 
railway lobbyist. His experience was profitable, and his story 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 673 



of the same is interesting to read. At the following election in 
1904 he was the Democratic nominee without opposition, was 
elected over his Republican opponent, Mr. Charles Tinder, by a 
majority of 190 votes. After the expiration of the session he re- 
turned to his avocation, and took charge of his train as of yore. 

Mr. Gallagher is a Bryan Democrat, and hideth not his light 
under a bushel, but proclaims his faith to all men. He is an in- 
telligent, well-read gentleman. 

In 1906 he was again a candidate for representative from the 
county to the House of Delegates, and was nominated by his party 
without opposition, and at the election, on the 6th of November of 
that year, was elected over Captain Sant. Hamer by a close ma- 
jority of nineteen. Captain Hamer is also a very popular and in- 
telligent railway conductor on the C. & O. Railway. Captain 
Gallagher is a well-equipped legislator, a close student of .passing 
events and looks closely after the interests of his constituents, 
and is an honest and consistent friend of organized labor, over 
whom the corporations hold no club. 



JAMES K. SCOTT. 

James K. Scott was an early settler at the forks of Hungart's 
Creek and Boone Creek in Talcott District. He died at the age 
of sixty-four years, leaving surviving him a widow, who has since 
followed him to the grave, and three sons, George P., Green L. 
and John David, and several daughters, one of whom married 
Richard Boyd; one the late Samuel K. Boude, father of Clerk 
Boude, and one, Joseph Riley. 

James K. Scott came to the county from Rocky Point, in Mon- 
roe County, and participated in the formation of the county. He 
held the office of justice of the peace at two different dates, was a 
notary public and land surveyor and a man of intelligence and 
ability, thrifty in his business, which was principally that of farm- 
ing and lumbering. He operated a steam sawmill and owned a 
water grist mill on his plantation. His oldest son, James, died 
several years ago, leaving a family now grown, and his widow 
married Mr. Boude. 

George P. was a man of unusual intelligence and education for 
his day and time. He was largely educated by his own industry, 
energy and efforts, being especially proficient in mathematics. He 
taught school for several years, and then attended the Concord 



674 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Normal School, graduating in that institution with distinction, 
after which he was appointed a member of the Board of Examiners 
of the County, and continued in the school work and teaching un- 
til disabled by long illness, to which he finally succumbed, at about 
the age of forty-five years. For many years he was afflicted with 
rheumatism, and was so badly crippled that he could not occupy 
a chair in a sitting position. He was never married, and a short 
time prior to his death he sent for his old friend and schoolmate, 
James H. Miller, and had him to prepare his last will, by which 
he made him the executor thereof and trustee for the beneficiaries, 
who were infants. He had accumulated quite an estate for a man 
in his physical condition. His beneficiaries were principally his 
two brothers, J. D. and G. L. Scott, and the children of the latter, 
for whom he had great affection. 

John David Scott, the oldest son, is a prosperous citizen of 
Talcott District, occupied principally in farming, but for a number 
of years, also with his brother, G. L. Scott, engaged in the manu- 
facture of lumber. He is a gentleman of honesty, and has the con- 
fidence of his district, having been the constable, justice of the 
peace and road surveyor. 

Green Lee Scott, the other son of James K., is a also a farmer 
and lumberman of Talcott District, energetic and responsible in 
business matters, and one of the reputable citizens of the district 
and county. 

PATTERSON. 

There are very few persons of this name in the county, but it 
is one of the oldest of the old settlers. This family is an early 
one. This settlement was at the foot of the "Patterson" Mountain, 
on the Greenbrier side of the lower Lick Creek. The persons of 
the family, of whom the present generation have any recollection, 
were the family of brothers, of which two were bachelors, and lived 
to a ripe old age, and never married, and were born and died on the 
same spot. They were Charles and Lewis, and were noted for some 
eccentricities, something like the old French family of Ballangees, 
of the Hinton section, such as Evi, Lafayette and Lorenzo. They 
were tanners and farmers, and lived in a large hewed log house 
on the farm. The farmers for ten miles around would bring in 
their cowhides and have them tanned into shoe and harness leather. 
Also calf hides, deer hides, coon and other hides of wild animals. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 675 



Both upper leather as well as sole were made. The deer hides 
were dressed and tanned, and the hides made the best of gloves, 
strings and straps. A niece of these brothers was. Miss Alice Pat- 
terson, who married Lieutenant Nathan L. Duncan. She manu- 
factured these deer hides and others of the smaller wild animals 
into men and women's gloves. She had a wide reputation. They 
were hand-made, and her patterns, etc., were all original, and were 
developed from her own ingenuity. 

A brother of these Patterson bachelors, Charles, married and 
owned a farm on the immediate top of the mountain, leading from 
the Meadows to Lick Creek. He died many years ago, leaving a 
large family of small children. His oldest son, A. G. Patterson, 
succeeded to the old farm at the foot of the mountain, and there 
resides to this day. He in his youth was considered the best shoe- 
maker in the region, and would go to a farmer's house and remain 
until he had "shod" the whole family for the coming winter. The 
shoes, both women and men's, were made from the tannery of his 
uncle, who had tanned the hides one-half for the other. 

Another brother was John Patterson, who died during the war, 
leaving an only son, Thomas. 

The old bachelors were noted for their drollery, slowness of speech 
and honesty. A bull was owned by Lewis. Jim desired to dispose 
of him. Lewis said : "N-a-w, n-a-w, Jim ! wait — till — fall !" One day 
the animal tried to kill Lewis, and ran him into the top of an 
apple tree, and he called loudly for help. Jim finally came to his 
rescue, and when he got in hallowing distance,- Lewis yelled out : 
"Jim, let's kill this damn bull !" "N-a-w," said Jim ; "w-a-i-t t-i-1-1 
f-a-1-1 !" 

It is on this mountain, adjoining the Patterson lands, that the 
"Red Springs" Branch has its source, and it. is a part of the old 
Schermerhorn patent, which was once claimed by Dr. Martin, a 
noted French physician and chemist, who located years before the 
war at the Blue Sulphur Springs, in Greenbrier County, and built 
his brick bath-houses, laboratory, etc., and pretended to buy this 
mountain country, including the "Red Springs." He ran long 
strips of rail fence around it, and took possession. Like many 
foreigners, his ideas of liberty were crude, he deciding what he 
could convert in possession of the soil was his by right, and thus 
he undertook to force and claim this mountain, but was ousted of 
title and possession when the true owner came to claim his own. 



676 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



BURDETT. 

There are a number of families of this name in the county; 
but, so far as I am able to ascertain, they all sprang from one com- 
mon source — St. Clair Burdett, of Green Sulphur District, com- 
monly known as "Sincler." He lived all his life in that country, 
principally on Laurel Creek and its waters. He died in the win- 
ter of 1906-7, near New Richmond, at the advanced age of one 
hundred and five years. The date of his birth is not known to a 
day, but at the time of his death he was undoubtedly the oldest 
man in the county. He was all his life a peaceable, harmless man, 
and had no aspirations for wealth or social distinction. He was 
not educated, and lived by toil, and had no troubles, leading a 
tranquil, peaceful, easy existence. He was a Democrat in poli- 
tics, and attended probably every election after he became a voter 
until his death, except that of 1906. His mind remained active 
until his death, which resulted from the infirmities of age, and not 
from disease. 

Mr. Burdett reared a large family, and his descendants are 
scattered far and wide over the land. One son, Joseph Green, 
married Miss Sarah Withrow, a daughter of Samuel H. Withrow, 
and died a few years ago. He lived for a number of years at the 
mouth of the Benbever (Vanbibber) Hollow, on Lick Creek, on 
the place now owned by Joseph S. Zickafoose. 

Giles H. Burdett, another son, resides now on Laurel Creek, 
as does also Peck Burdett. Washington E. Burdett, an enterpris- 
ing salesman for the Hutchison Stevenson Company, hatters, of 
Charleston, West Virginia, is a grandson of St. Clair and a son 
of Giles H. Joseph Burdett, "Fiddler Joe," now of Fayette, is 
also a grandson. 

There was also Lewis Burdett, a singular man, who lived on 
Keeney's Knob, near the Hurley place, for some years. 

The late "Jeff" Withrow, the merchant, who died at New Rich- 
mond a few years ago, married a granddaughter of St. Clair ; also, 
William E. Burdett, the lumberman, of Charleston, was a grand- 
son, who died some years ago at Charleston. 

CHARLES A. BABER. 

We have the pleasure of inserting in this book the portrait of 
our old friend and schoolmate, Charles A. Baber, who now resides 
at the mouth of Indian, on a part of the old Fowler place, which 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 677 



he owns in fee simple. He is a son of the Rev. Powhatan B. 
Baber, who lived and died near Red Sulphur Springs, in Monroe 
County. He died on the 2d day of February, 1900, at the age of 
seventy-five years. 

The Baber family were originally from Southwest Virginia, in 
Bedford County. Rev. Powhatan B. Baber was a minister in the 
Christian Church, and was one of the best citizens in Monroe 
County, being a resident thereof for seventy years. He was a man 
of strong and fixed convictions, adhering strictly to the laws of 
God and abiding by those of his country. He was a Whig in po- 
litical views before the war, and a Prohibitionist after. His son, 
the subject of this sketch, is a sincere Republican. As between 
the Democratic and Republican parties, the father believed in the 
tariff views and other policies of the Republican party in prefer- 
ence to those of the Democratic. At one time he was the nominee 
on the Fusion ticket of his county to represent Monroe in the State 
Legislature, at a time when the county was overwhelmingly Dem- 
ocratic and no prospect for election. Charles A. Baber was born 
on the 31st day of January, 1858, in Monroe County, residing on 
his father's farm, of which he is now the owner, until his major- 
ity, being the youngest of the family of three sons, George W., 
who died in Chicago a few years ago, and four daughters. One 
of his brothers, Granville, is an able minister and missionary of 
the Seventh Day Adventist Church, having been a missionary in 
Chili for a number of years. His son Earl is now a medical stu- 
dent at Battle Creek Medical College, in Michigan. 

Hon. E. L. Dunn married the oldest daughter Mattie ; 
Emma V. married J. P. Williams ; Fannie married Charles Cald- 
well, and Ella N. married Hon. Chas. M. Via, now deceased. 

The subject of this sketch was married on the 14th day of May, 
1882, to Miss Jennie Miller, of Hans Creek, in Monroe County, 
and is the father of nine living children, his oldest son, Powhatan, 
following the steps of his grandfather, being a minister of the 
Christian Church, and now a student of Bethany College. 

Chas. A. Baber, like the majority of the young men of his time, 
had his own beginning to make, and without any assistance has 
acquired a considerable fortune for these days and times. He re- 
sides on a good farm at the mouth of Indian Creek, besides the 
old "Baber Homestead," the Indian Creek roller flour mill, which 
has lately been acquired by a joint stock company; the Indian 
Mills Supply Co., of which he was the promoter, chief stockholder 
and the president. He attended the public schools and the State 



678 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Normal School at Concord, in the famous session of 1878, along* 
with the writer, H. Ewart, the late J. W. Hinkle, Harvey Lewis, 
Mrs. Mark Jarrett, the Misses Ella and Stella Ewart, Clark Ellis, 
Professor James F. Holroyd, Bettie M. B. Lively, who afterwards 
married Professor Holroyd, and others. After leaving school he 
adopted the occupation of farming, which he has followed with 
incidental connections with other business enterprises, including 
stock dealing, and the operation of Indian Mills, with his father 
as part owner. 

In politics he has always been a consistent Republican, sup- 
porting its tickets and nominees in practically every campaign, 
not being so hidebound, however, as to follow political bosses to 
the detriment of the interest of his country. He has never been 
an aspirant for political office, nor a candidate for any position, 
except at one time his neighbors elected him president of the 
Board of Education of Forest Hill District, when the Democrats 
had a majority, although there has never been a time when he 
could not have received the nomination for any office in his county 
he would have accepted at the hands of his own party. He is a 
man of excellent judgment in business affairs, entirely sober, hon- 
est, and has the confidence of the community, and is one of the 
most" influential men in his part of the county. 

In the political campaign of 1904, he took sides with the "old- 
timers," and opposed the "floppers" and new converts to his party, 
taking the entire control of the management of the campaign of 
that wing of his party in Forest Hill District; and in a clean-cut 
issue between the two factions of his party in his district at the 
party primaries' in that campaign, the entire party supported Mr. 
Baber, with the exception of twelve voters, who followed Mr. L. 
G. Lowe, the leader in that . district of the opposing faction, and 
a very prominent as well as popular man. This is mentioned to 
illustrate the character and strength of the man among his neigh- 
bors. 

James R. Baber was the ancestor of the Baber family in this 
region. He was the father of Rev. P. B. Baber, Hostin Baber and 
Granville Baber. He was born in 1783, and died at the age of 
eighty years. Granville Baber went to California in the days of 
the gold discoveries and excitements, and returned, bringing ten 
thousand dollars in gold attached to his person. Hostin Baber 
lived for many years on Wolf Creek, and died a few years ago, 
leaving James R. Baber, who married a Miss Bush, now residing 
on Beech Run, in Jumping Branch District. John Baber and 



J. LEE BARKER, 
Surveyor, Teacher and Farmer. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 679 



Charles Baber, his other sons, are now in the employ of the C. & 
O. Ry. Company, and reside in Hinton. Hostin Baber was a cele- 
brated auctioneer in his day. 

Rev. Powhatan B. Baber was born on the 14th of September, 
1824, and died February 3, 1900. He was born in Bedford County, 
Virginia. He was a fine shoe and boot maker, as well as a minis- 
ter of the gospel and farmer. He married Miss Caroline Tuggle, 
who died on the 26th of August, 1904. 

GENEALOGY OF THE BARKER FAMILY IN WEST 

VIRGINIA. 

James Barker was born in 1726, and was an Englishman and 
captain of a British man-of-war. He married a Miss Smith, a dis- 
tinguished lady of Portsmouth England, in the year 1751. From 
them sprung Jacob Barker, in 1761, a boatman on the James 
River, who married Susan Garner, of French descent, in 1786, and 
from them sprung William A. Barker, in 1796, who married Miss 
Sarah Hobbs, a woman of distinguished intellectuality, born in 
Bedford County, Virginia, in 1800, and married in 1817, and from 
this union sprung James B. Barker, in 1818; Mary V. Barker, in 
1820; M. C. Barker, in 1821; Wm. E. Barker, in 1824; A. L. Bar- 
ker, in 1826; Thos. J. Barker, in 1828, and Francis S. Barker, in 
1830. M. C. Barker, who settled finally on the Gatliff land, was 
born in 1821, and married Miss Julia A. Lilly, who was born in 
1827, daughter of Robert C. Lilly, a prosperous planter and slave- 
owner, in 1842. 

The brothers of M. C. Barker settled in the West, Thos. J. 
Barker being a wealthy banker of Kansas City, Kansas. 

M. C. Barker was one of the sturdy and thrifty settlers of the 
county twenty odd years before the Civil War. He removed from 
Giles County in 1842, and married Miss Julia A. Lilly, one of the 
great family of that name, who settled the country west of New 
River. He first settled on Beech Run, but later purchased the 
old Gatliff bottom, formerly owned by Anderson Pack, the bot- 
tom being one of the Gatliff patents, and is one of the most fertile 
and productive tracts of land in the county. He was a man of fine 
business sense, and noted for his love of peace, being the mediator 
by which many neighborly disputes were amicably settled, and 
enemies made into friends by reason of his good services. He 
was a man of fine physique and judgment in business and other 
matters. He was justice of the peace at one time before the war. 



680 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



back in 1859, and was justice also during the war, and at the time 
he was taken prisoner, the Union soldiers carrying him to Beck- 
ley, before General Hayes, who discharged him after three months' 
imprisonment. 

By his last will his wife retained control of his fine home farm 
and other property, the same eventually reverting in fee to his 
son James and two daughters — Ollie, who married John Webb, 
and Frances, who married John Bradberry. He was, at the time of 
the change in the Constitutional Convention abolishing the county 
courts, president, elected for a full term. He was later an inde- 
pendent candidate for delegate to the Legislature, but was de- 
feated by the regular Democratic candidate. 

His son, William A., died early in life, unmarried. His daugh- 
ter, Mary E., married James Lilly, and resides now in Raleigh 
County. Robert J., who married Miss Malot, died in the Confed- 
erate Army during the war between the States. The next son- 
was John W., an enterprising and successful farmer, who resides 
on the old Clark plantation near the mouth of Bluestone, and is 
also a silversmith and a reliable surveyor. He married Miss Me- 
lissa M. Meador. Thos. Benton, the next son, resides on a farm 
in Jumping Branch District, and is a successful farmer. He mar- 
ried Miss Harriet Lilly. James L. married Miss Emma Jordan, 
a daughter of Hon. G. L. Jordan, and, after her death, Miss Alice 
Johnson.. He died in 1888. Sarah M. married James H. Gore, and 
died in 1892. Julia A. married William Houchins, Jr., of Pipestem, 
a prominent farmer, teacher and merchant. 

Jonathan Lee Barker resides on the James Roles farm, at the 
mouth of Bluestone, a part of the old. Anderson Pack lands. He 
is a successful farmer and surveyor, as well as one of the successful 
teachers of the county, and prominent in Republican politics. He 
was at one time the nominee of his party for member of the county 
court, but was defeated by reason of the party being in the mi- 
nority. In 1904 he was appointed by Governor Dawson to re- 
assess the real estate of the county at its true and actual value 
under the new tax system then coming into existence. His as- 
sessment was very generally satisfactory and but few complaints 
were heard, being much more satisfactory than in the adjoining 
counties. No appeals were taken from his judgment, and but few, 
if any, changes made, and only complaints where an error -was 
made, which was promptly corrected. His work in this line should 
be very gratifying, as usually great dissatisfaction arises from 
work of this character. Mr. Barker was also a member of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



681 



Board of Examiners of the county for a term of four years, and 
has taught in the public schools for twenty-six years. He is also 
a notary public and a careful business man. 

The first clock ever made in West Virginia was made by a 
cousin of M. C. Barker, John Barker, many years ago. 

The oldest son of J. L. Barker, Dr. Barker, graduated 

in medicine at the University of Louisville in 1906, and is now 
practicing his profession in the State of Kansas. He graduated at 
twenty-one years of age — as young as it is possible for any person 
to graduate in that profession. 

Dr. Joseph L. Barker, the youngest son of M. C. Barker, gradu- 
ated from the University of Kansas, and has for the past several 
years practiced his profession in that State. He was one of the 
witnesses for the State in the celebrated trial of J. Speed Thomp- 
son, at Lewisburg, in 1886, for the killing of Elbert Fowler. M. D. 
Barker resides in Greenbrier County, having married Miss Eliza- 
beth Johnston, of that county. 

R. E. Barker, a son of John W., also graduated in medicine 
from the University of Kansas, and is a practicing physician in 
Kansas at this time, at Kansas City. Ethan Barker, -another son 
of John W., is in his third year in taking a medical course in the 
Medical College of Louisville. 

I am under obligations to Mr. Jonathan Lee Barker for many 
incidents of interest incorporated in this book, and for which he 
is entitled to credit, as he has taken much interest in procuring 
data for me. 

R. J. Barker, above mentioned son of M. C. Barker, is in Kan- 
sas City, Kansas, and was one of the engineers who surveyed out 
Oklahoma, and a member of the first Legislature of that Territory, 
and introduced the bill establishing the Agricultural Experimental 
College at Guthrie, Okla., and was made the first president of this 
college by appointment of President Harrison, at a salary of $2,000 
per year, and was postmaster at Crescent City for a dozen years. 

The following poem was written and set to music by Jonathan 
Lee Barker : 

All Hail to Summers ! 

(COPYRIGHTED.) 

Oh, Summers for me ! yes, dear Summers for me ! 

The land of the noble, the home of the free ! 

Where peace and contentment throughout the' good land 

Are showered on all by a generous hand. 



682 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Chorus : 

Then hail to thee, Summers! yes, all hail to thee! 
Thy hills and thy rills are delightful to me; 
There's room in thy borders for all who may come, 
And a welcome for all who will make thee their home, — 
Who will make thee their home. 

O'er hill and o'er dell, wheresoever you roam, 
There's always a welcome in some happy home, 
Where maidens are singing and laughing with glee, 
In innocent mirthfulness and ecstasy. 

The fairest of flowers adorn every hill, 
And the eye is enchanted by brooklet and rill ; 
School-houses and churches are on every hand, — 
All these make a country both lovely and grand. 



HON. WILLIAM WITHERS ADAMS. 

It is a pleasure and a duty the writer owes to the memory, and 
to pay some tribute to a deceased friend, that he writes of William 
Withers Adams. 

Mr. Adams came to this county soon after its formation, and 
made his home at Hinton, in that part of the town now under the 
municipal jurisdiction within the territory of Avis, building a cot- 
tage on the ground now occupied by Mr. H. Ewart, which ground 
he afterwards sold to Major Benj. S. Thompson. He took part 
in the legal battles growing out of the question of the location of 
the county seat, and formed a copartnership for the practice of the 
law with the Hon. Fount W. MaHood, a son of the late Judge 
A. MaHood, of Princeton, Mercer County. Mr. Adams was a na- 
tive of Petersburg, Virginia, the son of a Methodist minister. His 
wife was a Miss Withers. He was educated by an uncle, Dr. 
Withers of Petersburg, graduating at the University of Virginia, 
taking his degrees, and was one of the foremost in his class, tak- 
ing the orator's medal. He first practiced law in the city of Rich- 
mond, Va., before coming to Hinton. After the death of Mr. Ma- 
Hood and of Elbert Fowler, he and the writer formed a copartner- 
ship, under the style of Adams & Miller, which continued until the 
date of his death, in April, 1895. 

After the death of his uncle in Petersburg, whose property he 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 683 



inherited, he continued to practice law in the city of Hinton un- 
til his removal to Charleston, seeking a broader field for his abil- 
ity, in the year 1884, in which city he resided until his death, be- 
ing at that time the senior member of the firm of Adams, Couch 
& Smith, of Charleston, W. Va. 

In politics he was a sincere believer in the policies of the 
Democratic party, and advocated its cause from the stump and the 
hustings, being one of the most eloquent and forcible speakers in 
the Democratic ranks in his time. He was averse to being a can- 
didate for any office. 

In 1880 the writer had determined on making the study of the 
practice of the law "as a profession, and applied to Mr. Adams for 
books, aid and instruction, which was readily granted, and it seemed 
to me, while under his tutorship, that it was hardly reasonable 
to believe that one man knew as much law as he seemed to be 
familiar with. He was nominated in the year 1878 as the Demo- 
cratic candidate for State Senate from this district, over his pro- 
test. His friends had to drag him into a seat and hold him there 
until the convention adjourned, in order to prevent his then and 
there declining and refusing the nomination. His opponent was 
the Hon. William Prince, a very popular gentleman from Raleigh 
County, who ran as an Independent candidate, being supported by 
the Republican party and a number of Democrats who were op- 
posed to Mr. Adams on factional grounds ; but party lines were 
not so closely drawn, and he was elected by a creditable majority. 
He held this office for four years, taking a prominent place in the 
councils of the law-makers of the State, being an associate and col- 
league in the Senate with the Hon. R. F. Dennis, of Greenbrier 
County. 

He died very suddenly in Charleston, W. Va., of heart disease, 
leaving a wife, who died within a few years, and four children — 
Wm. Withers and Wilcox, his two sons, and two daughters, Misses 
Sherred W. and Bessie, each of whom still resides in Charleston. 
His age at his death was about forty-four. He was an eminent 
Christian, affiliated with the Episcopal Church, and was practically 
the founder of that organization in Hinton, and largely financed 
the construction of that denomination's first church edifice, St. 
Luke's Church, built of brick, one story, on the corner of Third 
Avenue and Temple Street, on the site of the present Episcopal 
Church, and which was blown down and destroyed by a severe 
thunder storm some years ago, and on the site of which the wooden 
church structure has been built on the old foundation. Mr. Ad- 



684 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ams largely paid for this brick building out of his own private 
means. He and Messrs. C. L. Thompson, Major B. S. Thompson, 
and their families, with Captain A. A. Atkinson and his family, 
were the main support of that church organization in this city for 
a number of years. 

Mr. Adams had the confidence of all the people. He was a 
great lawyer, and they believed in him. He was unselfish, patient, 
of great tact, and stood for the common people. His kindliness of 
heart, gentleness of character, lack of resentfulness, without malice 
or hatred, always ready to forgive an insult or unkindness, and 
to bestow charity and mercy. All of these characteristics he pos- 
sessed in an eminent degree, and it is a matter of impossibility to 
give this Christian gentleman the merit to which he was entitled, 
and the writer owes much to his teaching and his example — a debt 
of gratitude which he will ne\ T er be able to repay. 

He was a Knight Templar in Masonry, and he was buried bv 
that fraternity. 

THE PRINCE FAMILY. 

Burke and E. O. Prince were pioneer settlers in the city of 
Hinton, and are sons of the late Edwin Prince, of Beckley, West 
Virginia. We are enabled to give something of the Prince geneal- 
ogy through the courtesy of Hon. I. C. Prince, of Beckley, a son 
of the late Hon. Wm. Prince. 

E. O. Prince, one of the first settlers of the town of Hinton, 
with his brother, Burke, was engaged in the hardware business for 
a number of years. Afterwards, Burke Prince removed to the 
city of Bluefield, where he died by his own hand from temporary 
insanity, supposed to have been caused by unfortunate business 
reverses. E. O. Prince was the second cashier of the Bank of Hin- 
ton, of which establishment he was in charge for a number of years, 
and is still a resident of the city of Hinton, as clerk at the Chesa- 
peake Hotel. 

First in the history of this family we have John Prince, who 
was rector of East ShefTord Church, Berkshire, England, and who 
married a daughter of Dr. Toldenbury, of Oxford, England. There 
were four sons born of this marriage and seven daughters. 

Second — John Prince, the eldest son of John No. 1,. born at 
East ShefTord, England, in 1610, came to America in 1633, and 
married Alice Honor, of Watertown, Mass., in May, 1637, of which 
there were the following issue : John, Elizabeth, Job, Joseph, Mar- 




WM. WITHERS ADAMS, 
Christian. Lawyer, Orator and Statesman. 



686 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



John Beckley, resides at Beckley, West Virginia, a very intelligent, 
Christian, conscientious and gentlemanly man, and is now engaged 
in the mercantile business. He was clerk of the county court of 
that county for some eighteen or twenty years. 

The descendants of Clarkston and William Prince live princi- 
pally in Raleigh County. William Prince at one time represented 
Raleigh County in the Legislature of West Virginia, as did also 
his son, Hon. I. C. Prince, a capitalist now residing at Beckley, 
W. Va., and one of the founders of the Bank of Raleigh, and its 
vice-president. William Prince, another son, resides at Prince 
Station, and is one of the principal coal operators of this section 
of the State. James Prince was one of the early settlers of Hin- 
ton, engaging in the mercantile business, and afterwards served 
one term as postmaster of that town, and is now the postmaster 
at Prince Station. His daughter married our townsman, Hon. 
Frank Lively, the attorney. 

The only member of the Prince family now residing in the 
county is E. O. Prince, a son of Edwin Prince. Edwin Prince was 
one of the most sucessful business men in this section of the State, 
leaving an estate at his death, some eight years ago, estimated to 
be in value $150,000. One of his sons, Geo. H. Prince, married a 
daughter of the late Dr. John G. Manser, Miss x\. G. Manser, who 
resides since the death of her husband at Burden, Kansas, having 
located there with her father when he emigrated to Kansas, a few 
years before his death. 

CHARLES GARTEN, SR. 

■ Charles Garten, Sr., was born on Wolf Creek, near the pres- 
ent postoffice of Buck, then Monroe County, on April 5, 1818. He 
was a son of Charles Garten, of near Greenville, Monroe County, 
who removed to Wolf Creek about 1810. The father of the sub- 
ject of this sketch died when he was nine years old, and his mother 
died when he was fourteen years old. He worked for a number 
of years on the farm of Isaac Carden, which is the farm now owned 
by the Greenbrier Springs Company, at the low price of seven dol- 
lars per month. In December, 1844, he married Miss Rhoda Wood- 
rum, the daughter of John Woodrum, who also lived on Wolf 
Creek, a mile above the present postoffice of Buck. He settled on 
a farm on the mountain a mile and a half from where he was born, 
and on which plantation he still resides. He was the father of 
seven children, Mrs. D. S. Thompson, of Forest Hill; Mrs. Oliver 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



687 



Scott, of Table Rock, Raleigh County; Mrs. J. D. Bolton, Airs. H. A. 
Bolton, of Forest Hill; Charles W. Garten, now residing at Athens. 
Tennessee, and John R. Garten, who lives on the Garten planta- 
tion with his father, Charles Garten, Sr. 

Mr. Garten is a man of sterling character, and has been a 
member of the Missionary Baptist Church and one of its chief 
supporters and officials for many years. He has always been a 
Democrat in political faith, and followed the leaders of that great 
party through all of its vicissitudes. By his good business sense 
and management he has accumulated a comfortable fortune, which 
at this time he has largely distributed among his children, giving 
to each a comfortable home. Mr. Garten resides in the neighbor- 
hood of the old Pollard survey of 2.500 acres, of which he was the 
owner of a considerable portion. This has been a famous survey 
by reason of the litigation growing out of the fact of junior pat- 
entees claiming various parts thereof, and on which they had paid 
no taxes for a number of years. It embraced the present farm of 
J. M. and W. N. Allen, T. M. Hutchinson, O. C. Hutchinson, Alas- 
ton Hutchinson heirs, John W. Lowe, Clayburn, A. H. 

Saunders, E. L. Saunders, R. E. Saunders, Airs. Wilbur Ramsey, 
W. L. Crawford, H. T. Shieler, C. W. Garten, T. R. Webb, Jordan 
Taylor, John R. Garten and others. This land, which at one time 
was not considered of sufficient value to warrant the owners in 
paying the taxes, has in recent years been sold for as much as 
$28.00 per acre, and portions of which can not be bought for even 
that price. 

Mr. Garten started as a very poor boy ; carried oats on his back 
to Red Sulphur Springs and sold them to get a start, and to pre- 
vent the constables from levying on his horse, of which he had 
only one. He worked himself and paid off his early debts, and 
decided not to make any more, and lived up to this resolution. 

The wisdon of Air. Garten was shown in the early days by se- 
curing the ownership of a portion of these valuable lands at a 
minimum price, appreciating the fact that in the future their act- 
ual value would become known in the markets. The Pollard 
heirs, who were Southerners, after the appreciation in value of this 
real estate, brought suits against many of the occupants, who were 
victorious in the litigation. These suits were brought at Union, 
in Alonroe County, and the people were defended by Hon. Allen 
T. Caperton. These suits were determined in the early fifties and 
sixties. 



688 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Charles Garten, though now a very aged man, retains undimmed 
both his physical and mental faculties. He resides with his son, 
John R. Garten, an enterprising farmer, at the old homestead. 
While his other son, C. W. Garten, Jr., in recent years emigrated, 
and is engaged in business at Athens, Tenn. While in this coun- 
try he was a prominent Democratic politician and farmer. 

Clyde Garten, one of the grandsons of Charles Garten, is one 
of the most enterprising and best educated farmers and teachers 
in this section. Charles Garten can remember when there were 
no inhabitants at the head of Wolf Creek, which was settled about 
1830, and no one on the Zion Mountain except a family of free 
negroes, known as the Aarons, and an old gentleman by the name 
of Sam Collins and his family. 

In 1830 or 1835 Rev. Edw. Woodson bought the John Peters 
farm, one mile east of Forest Hill, and settled thereon. He was 
the first resident Baptist minister in that part of the country. Mr. 
Garten is one of the old pioneers in this region of the country, 
having no educational advantages, not being able to read or write, 
but he is a gentleman of good business accomplishments. 

Martin Keadle, now ninety years old, is one of the most re- 
markable men in Summers County. He is hale and hearty, and 
has the appearance of being not more than sixty-five years of age. 
Both his mental and physical faculties are unimpaired. 

The Cadles were among the old settlers in the Bluestone and 
Jumping Branch region. 



BALDWIN LOYD HOGE. 

B. L. Hoge, now a citizen of Los Angeles, California, was for 
eighteen years the clerk of the circuit court of Summers County. 
He first emigrated to this county from Mercer, about the time of 
the formation of the county, and became deputy clerk of the cir- 
cuit court under Allen H. Meador. After the expiration of Mr. 
Meador's term, he was elected for three successive terms of six 
years each, practically holding that position for a period of twenty- 
four years, and during the history-making period of the county 
prior to this date. His first selection was in October, 1878. After 
holding the office for a period of twenty-four years, he was ' suc- 
ceeded by the present incumbent, W. H. Boude, and was imme- 
diately following elected mayor of the city of Hinton, holding 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 689 



that office for a term of two years. At the expiration of same, he 
emigrated to California with his family. 

Mr. Hoge was a native of Giles County, Virginia, and served 
in his youth as one of the gallant fighters of Kemper's Brigade, 
Pickett's Division, Army of Northern Virginia. He was born in 
1845, reared and educated in his native county until the spring of 
1862, when he enlisted in Company "D," 7th Virginia Infantry, as 
a private. Throughout the remainder of the war he was identi- 
fied with the distinguished service of his command, participating 
with unfailing devotion and bravery in the great conflicts of the 
Southern Army. Among the engagements in which he served may 
be mentioned Manassas, Williamsburg, Seven Pines, Seven Days' 
Battle Around Richmond, Second Manassas, Boonsboro, Sharps- 
burg, Fredericksburg, Gettysburg, Plymouth, N. C. ; Drewery's 
Bluff, and Second Cold Harbor. He was wounded in the thigh 
at Williamsburg, but escaped injury in the famous charge of Pick- 
ett's Division at Gettysburg, in which he participated. He was 
just twenty years old at the close of the war in April, 1865. 

In 1870 he removed from Giles County to Princeton, Mercer . 
County, and served there as deputy clerk of the circuit court. Five 
years later he came to Hinton, and served here in this county, as 
stated, eighteen years as clerk, and six years as deputy. He was 
always known as Bolly Hoge, and was distinguished for his cour- 
tesy as a public servant. 

He was married in 1875 to Kate Young, a daughter of I. G. 
and Mahalia Young, of Summers County, and they have six chil- 
dren — Roy R.. a lawyer in California ; Effie S., who married a Mr. 
Wygal, who also resides in California ; Harry P., a traveling sales- 
man, now located in Hinton, W. Va. ; Lacy W., Frank P. and 
Fred L. Mr. Hoge was a brother-in-law of Messrs. I. G. Young 
and Harvey Young, of New River, and of the late I. G. Young, the 
merchant, who died in Hinton, some eighteen months prior to this 
writing. Mr. Hoge was clerk of the circuit court during the in- 
cumbency of Judge McWhorter's first term, Judge Holt's two terms 
and a part of Judge Campbell's term, as judges of the circuit court. 

After his marriage to Miss Young he erected a residence on 
the river bank in the city of Upper Hinton, which was washed 
away in the great flood of 1878, with all of his personal belongings, 
after which he purchased a lot and erected a residence near the 
court house in Hinton, which property is now owned by T. H. 
Lilly, the lumber merchant. 



690 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE BARTON FAMILY. 

James Barton was the ancestor of the present Barton family 
of Summers County. He moved to what is now Forest Hill Dis- 
trict from Bedford County, Virginia, seventy years ago. Sixty 
years ago he bought land on what is now known as Barton's 
Ridge, upon which he built a log residence. This house is yet 
standing, and one of the old landmarks of that neighborhood of 
the early pioneer settlements. The land was very heavily timbered 
in that region, but he lived to see the most of it improved, cleared 
and cultivated. He lived to the good old age of ninety-three years. 
His wife lived to the age of eighty-two years. Her maiden name 
was Susan Martin, a daughter of John Martin, another one of the 
early settlers of this county. 

James Barton, the ancestor, raised six children, four boys and 
two girls, whose names were as follows : Willis, Elizabeth, An- 
drew, Joel, James and Eliza. Willis Barton is the oldest child, 
and was born June 23, 1820, and lived to be eighty-three years old. 
The only child of James Barton, the ancestor, now living, is Mrs. 
Eliza Noble. Willis Barton married Rachel Neely, daughter of 
John Neely. Her mother was the daughter of James Swinney, 
one among the oldest settlers of the' New River country. He 
moved to the place where James Barton now resides, known as 
the "Wilson Swinney" place, about the year 1812, where he lived 
unti'l his death, about 1895. Seventy-five acres of the land where 
James Barton now lives was granted to him by patent from the 
Governor of Virginia on the first day of March, 1810; John Tyler, 
afterwards President of the United States, being then Governor of 
that Commonwealth. Eighty acres of that farm he purchased from 
Frances Farley, who received his grant to the same on the 15th 
day of October, 1786, which grant was signed by the great orator, 
Patrick Henry, then Governor of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 

This region was also early settled by the Farleys and Wileys, 
and before the Indians had entirely abandoned the New River 
country. It was Bob Wiley who killed an Indian, and cut a large 
piece of skin from his back, from which he made a razor strop. 

James Swinney, an uncle of James Barton, was one of the sol- 
diers in the Indian wars, and was with the armies against the In- 
dians in the Kanawha Valley, and was probably with General 
Lewis at the Indian battle of Point Pleasant. 

Mr. James F. Barton, who now owns the "Swinney farm," on 
which he resides, is sixty-three years old, and it is due to his cour- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 691 



tesy that I am indebted for information concerning the Barton 
family. 

James F. Barton, in reply to a letter from the writer about this 
time, says: "There are great changes in the country around about 
here. Some are claiming that there has been a great advance in 
the last forty years, and probably there has been in some things ; 
but~ give me back the good old days of my boyhood, when nearly 
everybody was honest, and their word as good as their bond and 
security. There was much more friendship and sociability among 
the people then than now. All the fastenings the people had to 
their doors then were either a thumb latch or string to tie doors 
on the outside when they left home, and they were safer then 
than now, with all the locks that can be put on them. Forty years 
ago New River was a beautiful, clear stream of pure water, with 
an abundant supply of the best species of fish ; now it is so pol- 
luted with mud and other filth that the waters are hardly fit to 
scald a hog with, besides the fish are nearly all extinct. When I 
can first remember, most of the upland in this section was heavily 
timbered ; but now it is nearly all cleared that is worth clearing, 
and a good deal of it worn out. The people worked hard then, 
but they were much healthier and stronger than now, and most of 
the women could do as much work on the farm as the men 
can do now. Since I have been writing this, and thinking over 

'the past, it has brought many sad recollections to my mind, but 
not so sad as when I look forward into the future and think what 
a few years will bring on our posterity. Only a few years 
ago people would go long distances to attend church, but now the 
majority of people will pass by a church meeting to attend a pic- 
nic. Most of my ancestors were members of the New River 
Primitive Baptist Church. When I was a boy they had no church 
houses in this neighborhood, but would hold their meetings at the 
residences of the neighbors, sometimes with one, then with an- 
other, and all seemed to enjoy their meetings, and without fear of 
pistols being carried to preaching. The young people had much 
more manners then than now, with all -their boasted education. 
There is another great evil that is now sapping the life of young 
men that we didn't have fifty years ago, and that is the cigarette 

- habit." 

I quote the above in full from a letter received from Mr. Bar- 
. ton, bearing date December 20, 1905. He is one of the most intel- 
ligent farmers of the county, and a man of original good sense, 
his educational opportunities having been limited to six or seven 
months. 



692 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



REV. HENRY DILLON. 

Henry Dillon is a native of West Virginia, born June 23, 1854, 
at Red Sulphur Springs, in Monroe County, and is a son of Hen- 
derson Dillon, residing at and near the mouth of Indian Creek 
all his life. He lived a short time at Forest Hill, and now resides 
at Greenville, in Monroe County, with his daughter, Mrs. Minnie 
Houchins, the widow of the late Henry Houchins, a Summers 
County boy, who was reared at Indian Mills, and recently died 
near Greenville. 

Mr. Dillon has spent most of his life on a farm, being a black- 
smith by trade, and also engaged in the mercantile business. In 
1904 he sold his excellent farm, a part of the old Fowler planta- 
tion, at the mouth of Indian Creek, to Ward Simms, and removed 
to Missouri on the 10th day of February, 1904; from thence he 
went to Texas, remaining in that State, however, only five months, 
and from thence returning to his native county of Summers. By 
trade Mr. Dillon was a blacksmith and wagon-maker, and one of 
the best in this country. His reputation for honor and fair dealing 
is as good as that of any man now living. 

He devotes a large portion of his later years to the work of 
the Baptist ministry, having been ordained as a minister of that 
church five years ago. He was the head of a family of three 
brothers — French, who recently died in Lexington, Ky. ; James, 
who is also a minister in the Missionary Baptist Church, and 
Lewis. Mr. Dillon was married in 1871 to S. E. Witt, and by this 
union has seven children. 

He was elected to the position of justice of the peace, but re- 
signed before the expiration of his term, and was succeeded by 
James M. Keatley, of Indian Mills. While Mr. Dillon was born 
of poor parents, and had his own mark to make in the world, he 
has succeeded by his own thrift, energy, honest dealing and good 
judgment in accumulating a comfortable fortune, and making a 
name as one of the purest and noblest citizens of this or any other 
country. It may be said of Henry Dillon that he is one of nature's 
noble men, which statement the writer many years ago heard ap- 
plied to him by his friend, the late Elbert Fowler, of whom Mr. 
Dillon was a great friend and admirer. 

The husband of Mr. Dillon's daughter, Henry Houchins, hav- 
ing died recently, leaving her with the care of a family of two 
small children, Mr. Dillon has taken up his home with her, in or- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 693 



der to aid her in the management of her farm and affairs. While 
Mr. Dillon found the West — Missouri and Texas — a great country, 
he was glad to get back to the ancient hills of Summers, and onto 
his native heath, where he is now working at his old and manly 
trade (of which he is not only not ashamed, but of which he is 
proud) of blacksmith and farming, and also ministering to the 
spiritual wants of many people, being an eloquent and sincere 
Baptist. While in no sense a politician, he supports and votes the 
Democratic ticket, and has been frequently urged by his neigh- 
bors to become a candidate for House of Delegates and other of- 
fices. He was on the ticket as deputy for O. T. Kesler in the race 
of the latter for the Democratic nomination in 1896. 

THE KEADLES. 

The first of the name to settle in America were two brothers, 
Abram (or Abraham) and John Keadle, the former settling in Ma- 
ryland and the latter in South Carolina. From Abraham descended 
the Readies of Monroe County, to which family the subject of this 
sketch belongs. His grandfather, James G. Keadle, was born and 
reared in Virginia ("Old Dominion"), where he married Lucinda 
Eades, sister to the late George Eades, of Summers County, and 
settled near the famous Greenbrier White Sulphur Springs. He 
afterwards moved to Monroe County, where the}'' reared a family 
of thirteen children, five boys and eight girls: Abram, Lamaster, 
Andrew Jackson, James, Jr., and Henry; Martha Ann, Susan, Eliza, 
Malinda, Sarah, Jenetta, Bell (Isabell) and Margaret, all of whom 
married and were blessed with children (forty-two in all), save 
two, who bore no offspring. 

Abram, J. E. Keadles' father, now living near Red Sulphur 
Springs, Monroe County, was born in 1826 (being now eighty-one 
years old, hale and hearty) ; reared near Union, Monroe County, 
and married Virginia Whaites, who became the mother of two 
sons, William Franklin and James Edward, the latter being about 
two years old when his mother died. His father then married 
Amelia Tuggle, of Monroe County, who bore five children : Mary, 
Amanda Arabell, Malinda Jane, Darken Dexter and Charles An- 
derson (now county superintendent of Monroe County, 1907). 

The father of J. E. Keadle served as lieutenant of a militia 
company from Southwestern Monroe (now Summers) County, and 
afterwards served at Richmond in the winter and spring of 1865. 

J. E. Keadle, born September 13, 1852, in Greenbrier County, 



694 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



near Organ Cave, grew to manhood in Monroe County, and en- 
gaged in the profession of teaching. He was elected county su- 
perintendent of free schools in Monroe County in the year 1889, 
and is now the county superintendent of Summers County, having 
been elected in 1906 for a term of four years. His marriage was 
solemnized near Crump's Bottoms, Summers County, West Vir- 
ginia, October 8, 1873, when Martha Ellen, daughter of James 
(Jr.) and Sarah (Mann) Barton, became his wife. Her birth was 
at Crump's Bottom, April 30, 1859, the date, and her parents were 
also natives of Summers County. Her mother died in the spring 
of 1865. Seven children were born to Mr. and Mrs. Keadle (in 
Monroe County), of whom only three are living — James Welling- 
ton (teacher), born February 23, 1879; Rodolphus Elmer (now in 
United States Army), born May 13, 1882, and Everett Emerson 
(citizen of Hinton, railway ticket agent and employe), born Sep- 
tember 9, 1886, and was about a year old when his mother died 
near Union, Monroe County. 

In 1888, September 18th, Mr. Keadle married Martha Ellen Bar- 
ton, cousin of the first wife and daughter of James F. and Delilah 
(Garten) Barton, of Summers County. She was born September 
18, 1870. Their union is blessed with eight children, four boys and 
four girls: William May (wife "of Everett Young, of Hinton), 
born November 2, 1889; Byron Waldo, born November 26, 1891; 
Virginia Elizabeth, born August 17, 1895 ; Edward Russell, born 
February 22, 1897; Roscoe Dexter, born June 3, 1900; Olivia 
Lena, born August 24, 1902 ; Martha Fay, born April 23, 1905 ; and 
Dorsie, born July 1, 1907. 

Mr. Keadle is now the oldest county superintendent of free 
schools in point of service in the State. He was educated at the 
Concord Normal School, and was the only student at that school 
from Monroe County in 1888. He is a gentleman of honorable 
instincts, character and sensibilities. He was nominated by the 
Democratic primaries in 1904 over Professor W. E. Ball, and 
elected over the Republkan nominee, W. E. Grimmett. 

Andrew J. Keadle was born in Monroe County, March 7, 1829, 
and married Miss Caroline Coulter, June 5, 1866. They have two 
sons, Robert Edward Lee and Arthur Kent, the former born on 
the 12th of September, 1859, and the latter November 5, 1871. Miss 
Coulter was the daughter of Robert and Mary (Easkins) Coulter. 
James G. Keadle was the father of Andrew J., and his mother was 
Lucinda Eades. Through the years of the Civil War Andrew J. 
Keadle was a valiant soldier of King's Battalion, Confederate Army, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



695 



and was at the battles of Fisher's Hill, Kernstown, Lynchburg, 
Winchester, Cedar Creek, Frederick City, and many others. He 
was captured at Cedar Creek, October 10, 1864, and confined in 
the Federal Prison at Fort Lookout five months. In all he fought 
in twenty-eight hard-fought battles in that war, and never shirked 
a duty, as testified to by his comrades, among whom were A. A. 
Carden, but passed through the war unwounded. He was a car- 
penter by trade and lived at Union, in the county of Monroe. He 
died in April, 1906. ' 

Eliza Cadle married William Cary, the father of Captain J. R. 
Cary, superintendent of the C. & O. Railway Company, at Hinton, 
West Virginia, and Sarah Cadle married R. C. Vass, the father of 
Mrs. Ross Holstein, bookkeeper for the Hinton Water, Light & 
Supply Co., at Hinton, West Virginia. 

Robt. E. Lee Keadle is a young attorney of Monroe County, 
and a candidate for prosecuting attorney. 

NOTE.— James G. Keadle, grandfather of J. E. Keadle, lived 
to be about seventy-five years old, and his wife lived to be ninety- 
one, and knit a nice counterpane with her hands for Grover Cleve- 
land during his first Presidential term, she being of strong Demo- 
cratic faith, as well as the whole generation of Keadles. 

NEELY. 

One of the ancient families settling within the territory of this 
county was John Neely, who married Delilah Swinney, first set- 
tling in Monroe County. He was born in Kentucky. They raised 
ten children, who reared families. He wife died in 1851. They 
settled on Pipestem Creek, near the headwaters thereof in 1822, 
where he resided until his death, in 1865, being eighty-five years 
of age. William was his eldest child, born in 1809. He married 
Elizabeth Lilly in 1827, and raised two sons, Levi and William. 
The latter moved to Indiana, and died in 1832. A daughter, 
Rachel, married Willis Barton. Susan married John Justice, who 
died in Kentucky in 1862 in the Southern Army. Rachel died in 
1904 at the age of ninety years. Nelson, the fifth child, was. born 
in 1815, married Clara Pine, and they raised nine children. She 
died at the age of sixty-three; he died at the age of seventy-five. 
Squire Neely, the sixth child, married Mary Taylor. He died at 
the age of eighty-two years. Nancy, the seventh child, married 
James Cook, and died at the age of seventy. Hannah, the eighth 
child, married Louis Gore, who moved to Missouri, and there 



696 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



became a wealthy man. Harrison, the ninth, married Seela Har- 
vey, and they raised four children. Delilah, the tenth child, mar- 
ried Ballard Pine. They reared eight children and moved to 
Missouri, where they still reside. John Neely married Mary Clark 
and settled in Raleigh County and raised six children. Both died 
some years ago. These were the ten children of John Neely. Levi 
M.. Neely. the oldest of the Neely generation now living in this 
country, was born in 1829, and married Rebecca Lilly, a sister of 
Robt. Lilly (Miller Bob). To them were born ten children, nine of 
whom are now living. Mary, the oldest, married John H. Lilly, 
of the mouth of Little Bluestone ; Robert, the oldest son, resides 
on Pipestem. He held the office of justice of the peace for four 
years ; was constable for four years, deputy sheriff for eight years 
and jailor for one term. He is a popular man and one of the lead- 
ing citizens. The next son, Erastus, resides on Jumping Branch. 
He was for several years a policeman in Hinton and jailor of the 
county one term. He is engaged in merchandizing in the city of 
Avis and in farming in Jumping Branch. Conrad B. Neely, the 
next son, commonly known as "Coon," was a young man of ex- 
cellent parts, who was accidentally killed near the old Bluestone 
Mill in 1907, while enroute to visit his parents. His home was in 
Hinton. He married a daughter of the old surveyor, Michael 
Smith. He left Hinton in the fall of 1907 in a buggy for his 
father's house. Darkness overtook him before arriving, and, by 
some unknown accident, his horse and buggy were thrown over a 
steep embankment, and when his body was found, life was extinct. 
It was supposed that, in crossing a turn in the road in the dark, 
the horse went over, taking the buggy along with it. There being 
nothing to break the fall, the body of Mr. Neely rolled down the 
embankment to the river's edge, and life was evidently extinct 
by the time he reached the bottom, as he went over a high cliff 
in the descent. This tragedy occurred on Bluestone River a short 
distance from the old Bluestone Mill. 

Clara, another daughter, married John Richmond, a prosperous 
farmer and carpenter, who resides on Beech Run. Levi M. Neely, 
Jr., the next son, married a Hogan, and resides on his farm in 
Jumping Branch. He was elected assessor in 1904, and now oc- 
cupies that position, having faithfully performed the duties of that 
office, with George W. Hedrick, of Talcott, as his assistant. An- 
other son, Fount, resides in Jumping Branch, and is a farmer. 
David, another son, is also a prosperous farmer of the same dis- 



I 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 697 



trict. G. Ben Neely married a daughter of Hon. B. P. Shumate, 
resides in Ohio and is engaged as piano and musical machine agent. 

The Neelys are among the best citizens of the county. Levi 
M. Neely, the senior, has a reputation throughout all the country 
as the keeper of the old Bluestone Mill. His honesty and kind- 
ness of heart are matters of notoriety through all the region. He 
was at one time candidate for assessor, twenty-odd years ago ; was 
a deputy sheriff under James H. George for four years, and he and 
his wife, Rebecca, have been the keepers of the poor by contract 
for a number of years. Much trouble has been given to the county 
court by reason of the failure of persons contracting for the keep- 
ing of the paupers, as the county has no poor farm, until the con- 
tract was taken by these old citizens, since which time the poor 
have been properly and faithfully attended to and maintained, and 
all contracts made with the county faithfully kept. Mr. Neely is 
now an^old man, highly respected, as is his wife, commonly known 
throughout the county as, "Aunt Becca." The descendants of an- 
other branch of the family live in Pipestem District, Evan B. Neely 
residing near Pipestem. It was he and Jehu J. Vest who had the 
"scrap" at the convention in 1902 over the nomination for prose- 
cuting attorney. Mr. Neely was a partisan of one of the candi- 
dates, and Mr. Vest a partisan of another at the time. Great 
excitement prevailed, and they got into an altercation, but were 
separated without serious injury, Mr. Neely losing a part of his 
beard in the fracas, Vest getting his fingers mixed up in it. 
He has occupied a number of positions of trust in the dis- 
trict, being a member of the Board of Education and overseer 
of the poor. He is a staunch Democrat, taking a great interest in 
party and county affairs. He was a brave Confederate soldier 
during the Civil War. We are unfortunate in not being able to 
give a more definite history of this ancient family which settled 
in the Pipestem country when that part of the county was still 
a part of Giles, and the descendants of the ancient settlers are 
scattered throughout the country. 

The Jehu J. Vest above referred to is a descendant of the old 
settlers of that name, but the identity of the descendants has not 
been obtained. There was an old citizen by the name of Anderson 
Vest, who lived for a great many years at the foot of the White 
Oak Mountain, and died there. Jehu J. Vest has a son, Charles, 
and another son, Joseph, who lives in Pipestem. Jehu J. married 
a Keaton, who was a daughter of the first surveyor of Summers 
County, Joseph .Keaton. They are intelligent, respectable citizens. 



698 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE BOUDE FAMILY. 

The Boude family was of French origin. It is first found in 
County Essex, England, as early as the time of Henry IV. Adlord 
Boude, Esq,, married Henrietta, the daughter of Sir Edward 
Grimston. The Grimston or Grimstone family came over from 
Normandy with William the Conquerer. One of the family was 
standard bearer to William at the battle of Hastings, and one, Sir 
Harbottle Grimstone, was Speaker of the House of Commons at 
the Restoration, and Master of the Rolls. 

John Boude, son of Adlord and Henrietta Grimstone Boude, was 
the father of Adlord and Grimston Boude, who came to America 
near the close of the seventeenth century, and settled at Perth 
Amboy, as agents of the New Jersey proprietors. In "Documents 
Relating to the Colonial History of New Jersey," Vol. III., there 
is mention of a deposition of "Grimstone Boude, merchant, aged 
- thirty-eight, or thereabouts." The document is dated May 10, 1699, 
The name in the opening sentence is without the final "e," but the 
signature has. it. 

Grimstone Boude afterward moved to Philadelphia, where he 
died April 1, 1716. In his will, dated February 3, 1715, he leaves 
a considerable estate, including a negro woman, Joan, to his wife, 
Mary Boude, and their five children, Joseph Boude, Samuel Boude, 
John Boude, Thomas Boude and Henrietta Boude. 

Joseph Boude, the eldest son, married Elizabeth Baldwin, and 
moved to Lancaster County, where his name appears as late as 
1759. They had one son, Thomas, who died August, 1769. None 
of their descendants are now known. Samuel Boude, the second 
son, married Deborah, daughter of Peter Cox, and lived in Phila- 
delphia, where he died May 19, 1733. They had two children, John 
and Henrietta. John died young and unmarried ; Henrietta mar- 
ried Michael Hillegas, who was the first treasurer of the United 

States. John Boude, the third son, married Gertrude , 

and lived in Philadeplhia, where he died March 23, 1747. He was 
the only one who ever varied the spelling of the name so far as 
known. He spelled his name "Bood," to conform to the French 
pronunciation which had been followed up to that time. The pro- 
nunciation was afterward anglicised to "Bowd," and ever since 
the original French spelling, "Boude," and the English pronuncia- 
tion, "Bowd," have been uniform throughout all the generations of 
all the different branches of the family so far as I know. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



699 



Thomas Boude, the fourth son, married Sarah Newbold, about 
the year 1700. They lived in Philadelphia, and had eleven children, 
six of whom died in infancy. Mary, one of their daughters, mar- 
ried Matthew Clarkson, who was quite a prominent merchant and 
citizen of Philadelphia. He was mayor of the city for three terms, 
and occupied that office during the terrible epidemic of yellow fever 
there in 1793-94, and greatly distinguished himself by his bravery 
and discretion throughout that terrible ordeal. 

Joseph Boude, the tenth child of Thomas and Sarah Newbold- 
Boude, was born December 13, 1740. He was a soldier in the 
Revolution ; taken prisoner, and the last his family heard of him 
he was confined on board one of the British prison ships in New 
York harbor. They supposed he died there, but he did not. 
Whether he escaped or was exchanged, or how he got off the ship 
no one knows ; but he made his way to Baltimore, Maryland, where 
he married Barbara Black, by whom he had four children, Eliz- 
abeth, who married Joshua Barlow, and lived and died at Sykesville, 
Maryland ; Sarah, who married Clinton York, and settled at Chilli- 
cothe, Ohio, from whom the Works of New York are descended ; 
Charles, who died in Baltimore, unmarried ; and Rudolph Thomas 
Clarkson Boude, who was my father. I do not know where the 
name "Rudolph" came from, but he was called Thomas after his 
grandfather, and Clarkson after Matthew Clarkson, who was his 
uncle by marriage. Rev. Adam Poe Boude, in writing of the Boude 
ancestors, says : 

"My father, R. T. C. Boude, as he was familiarly known, 
was a remarkable man in several respects. He was born 
in Baltimore about 1793 or 1794. He was well endowed 
by nature. He had a fine mind and remarkably well edu- 
cated for a middle class man of his time. He was the 
largest man I ever saw, except one traveling on exhibition. He was 
six feet two and a half inches high without his shoes, and when he 
held out* his arms horizontally, his finger tips were seven feet and 
five inches apart. I do not know what he weighed, as he would 
never allow himself to be weighed or photographed after I knew 
him. But I feel sure that he would have weighed 350 pounds, or 
more, and yet he was without surplus fat. He had an immense 
frame, and the flesh he carried seemed almost entirely natural to 
it. In early life he learned the trade of a shoemaker, and followed 
it with more or less regularity as long as he lived. For a number 
of years he was a very successful teacher, and was much sought 
after in that profession, but after the illness of his wife, which 



700 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ended in her death, he gave that up, and returned to his trade. He 
was a very fine workman, and was patronized at high prices by the 
best people from far and near. He was an ornament to his trade, 
as he was also to his profession as teacher. At the close of his 
apprenticeship he entered the army in the war of 1812-14, and served 
to its close, in the "Baltimore Light Infantry Blues, Thirty-third 
Regiment, Maryland Volunteers." I quote these last words from 
my recollection of them on his old knapsack, in which my mother 
kept her garden seeds as long as she lived. After the close of the 
war, R. T. C. Boude, accompanied by an army comrade, David 
DeVoe, I think, set out on foot and traveled nearly all over the 
then known United States. They traveled nearly three years, 
visiting many places where there was no public conveyance of any 
kind, from New England to New Orleans and the backwoods set- 
tlements of the extreme West, and finally both settled in Fred- 
erick County, Virginia, where they both married. R. T. C. Boude 
married Elizabeth Ewing, only daughter of Thomas Ewing and 
- Adah Crawford Ewing, whose grandfather was a Darneille, of 
Powell's Fort, Virginia. They had eight children, Sarah Maranda, 
who married Joseph Ludwick, and lived and died in Coshocton 
County, Ohio ; Caroline Laura, who married Rev. Elisha Peer, of 
the Evangelical Alliance, or Albright Church, and, after a brief 
itinerant ministry, settled in Holmes County, Ohio, where they 
died, leaving one son, Rev. Rudolph Peer, in the ministry of that 
church ; Elizabeth Minerva, who married Philip Bowman and lived 
at Mount Clifton, Virginia ; Joseph Thomas, who married a Miss 
Rohr, and died in Columbus, Ohio, leaving two or three children, 
Samuel Kennerly, who married Sarah Nickell and lived and died 
in Summers County, West Virginia, leaving five children, one of 
whom, Walter H. Boude, has been for several terms clerk of the 
Circuit Court of Summers County; John Clinton Work (he threw 
off the "Work" after he was grown, and always regretted that he 
had a middle, name at all) was a soldier in the Confederate Army 
from the first drum tap to the battle of Chancellorsville, where he 
lost a leg, and was afterward enrolling officer and commandant of 
the post at Lexington until the close of the war. He was elected 
clerk of the Circuit Court of Rockbridge County, Virginia, and 
held the office by successive elections for thirty-four years, until 
death relieved him of it. He married Musadora A. Plunkett. They 
had no children. Adam Poe entered the itinerant ministry of the 
Methodist Church in 1857, at the age of twenty-two years, and is 
still in the effective ministry in the Baltimore Conference of the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 701 



Methodist Episcopal Church South, being the oldest effective man 
but two on the conference roll. He is at present stationed at 
Staunton, Virginia.' He married Louisa Lee Plunkett, a sister 
of Mrs. Captain J. G. Boude. They had one child, Rudolph Thomas 
Clinton Boude, who died August 22, 1888, at the age of twenty-one 
and a half years ; Mary Jane, the youngest child of R. T. C. and 
Elizabeth Boude, married B. J. Stanton, and lived and died in 
Shenandoah County, Virginia. They had six children, four of 
whom are still living, .two of them in the itinerant ministry; one 
in the Methodist Church and one in the United Brethren. Rev. 
Charles S. Stanton is now preacher in charge of the M. E. C. S. 
at Hinton, 1908. 

Elizabeth Boude, my mother, died in 1843, and my father 
married Margaret Warren, by whom he had two children, Martha, 
who married George Estep, and lives at Connicsville, Virginia, 
and Susan, who died in early life. 

There are many incidents of the family history that would 
make interesting reading for persons w T ho care for such things, 
and perhaps I ought to write some of them for the benefit of any 
such who may come after us, as I am the last survivor of the 
family and the only one who knows anything about them. But 
for the present, I content myself with this outline. 

Rev. A. P. Boude, in writing of the Boude family, says: "We 
know nothing of what became of Adlord Boude, the brother of 
my great-great-grandfather, who came to this country with him. 
I have been told he or his descendants went West in the early 
history of the country, and settled on the Ohio River near Wheel- 
ing, and that many of his descendants may be found on both sides 
of the river, from Wheeling to St. Louis. I have heard of a 
Charles Boude, who was a wholesale merchant in St. Louis, and 
had a steamboat called by his name that ran on the Mississippi 
River between St. Louis and New Orleans. But of this I know 
nothing certainly. 

"About thirty-five years ago I had a correspondence with Rev. 
Henry B. Boude, of Gallatin, Tennessee. He was at that time 
moderator of the General Assembly of the Southern Presbyterian 
Church. He wrote a number of letters and exchanged photo- 
graphs of our families, but the letters and the photographs were 
lost in a flood in the Shenandoah River in 1870, which swept away 
my house, with everything in it, and so I lost touch with him. I 
am told that he is still living at California, Mo., and have thought 



702 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



of renewing the correspondence, but have not done so. About 
the same time I exchanged a letter or two with a Judge Boude, 
of Kentucky. I have forgotten his name or where he lived. 

"I haA'e never seen but two persons named Boude, besides our 
own family. I haA'e never seen the name of any other Boude in 
print, though I have looked for it all my life, except in an article 
in the American Historical Register, published in Philadelphia, 
December, 1894. It was written by Emma St. Clair Whitney, a 
descendant of Samuel Boude through the Michael Hillegas family, 
and gfves the early history of the Boudes of Pennsylvania. I am 
indebted to that article for several of the facts stated in this. 

"On the 31st of January, 1884, I met in the Union Depot, Bal- 
timore, a man named Boude, who was in the employ of the North- 
ern Central Railroad as clerk. I had a very short conversation 
with him while waiting for a train. I learned from some source 
that I considered reliable that he was killed shortly after I saw 
him, in a driving accident in the streets of Baltimore. In the spring 
of 1884 I met, in Washington, D. C, Dr. John Knox Boude, who 
was, and had been for many years, an examiner in the pension 
office. I met him several times, and Ave had considerable corre- 
spondence. He was writing a history of the Boude family for 
publication in book form. He asked me to write up the history of 
our branch of the family, which I promised to do, and began to 
gather materials for it, but he aftenvards came to Lexington, Vir- 
ginia, and spent a week with my brother, Captain John C. Boude, 
and got from him what he wanted, so I let the matter drop. Dr. 
J. E. Boude died seA^eral years ago. I do not know Avhether his 
book was eA 7 er published or not. I should like to knoAA r , and, if it 
was, I should like to get a copy of it. 

"Tavo AA-eeks ago I heard of tAA*o Boudes, "William and George, 
in Bedford, Pa. I wrote to William Boude, but haA r e not heard 
from him. 

"A few days ago I got a letter from my nephew, Walter H. 
Boude, of Hinton, W T est Virginia, enclosing a letter he had re- 
ceived from D. Payne Boude, of Augusta, Kentucky, giving a con- 
siderable account of the Boudes of that country, which leaA^es no 
doubt in my mind that all the Boudes of America are of the same 
original stock. There are certain names, as John, Samuel, Thomas, 
Sarah, Elizabeth, that seem to run through the whole family 
everywhere." 

The Boudes of this county consist of one family, that of Samuel 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 703 



K. Boude, who removed from the Shenandoah Valley, in 1855, to 
Anthony's Creek, Greenbrier County, and thence to Forest Hill 
District, in Monroe County, now Summers, in 1859, and purchased 
a farm from B. B. Hutchinson, having married Miss Sarah J. 
Nickells, one of that old and respected family of that name in 
Monroe County, and was a sister of John Hinchman's wife. Sam- 
uel K., as are many of the Boude family, was a fine musician and 
a sweet singer. Another celebrated singer in that family is the 
Rev. Adam P. Boude, a brilliant minister of the M. E. Church 
South, now residing in Staunton, Virginia, and his son, Clinton, 
now deceased. Samuel K. Boude was the father of our present 
clerk of the circuit court, and who is the only male descendant of 
the name in the county now living, except his little son, Clinton 
Ford Boude. Samuel K. Boude was a brave soldier in the Con- 
federate Army, being a volunteer in Lowry's Battery of King's 
Battalion along with A. A. Carden, J. M. Carden and others. He 
was the first justice of Forest Hill District after the formation of 
the county, and was also appointed a constable in the construction 
of the county. He held this office four years, and was one of the 
commissioners appointed by the circuit court to adjust the county 
line dispute between Monroe and Summers and Greenbrier in that 
noted controversy. He died, however, before the hearing of the 
case, and another commissioner had to be appointed in his place. 
He died on the 15th day of February, 1896, at the age of sixty-five 
years, leaving surviving him one son, Walter H. Boude, and seven 
daughters. After the death of his first wife he married the widow 
of James Scott, a daughter of the late James Boyd, of near the 
Big Bend Tunnel, and a sister of Ben R. Boyd, her first husband 
being a son of the late James K. Scott, of Hungart's Creek. 

She still survives, with two daughters, Reta and Mona, by her 
last husband. Walter H. Boude was born on the 23d of Septem- 
ber, 1860. The late Captain John C. Boude was for many years 
clerk of the Circuit Court of Rockbridge County, Virginia, and 
well known alike as a soldier in the Civil War. Walter H. was 
raised at Forest Hill, on his father's farm, and, following in his 
footsteps, is an active Democrat and believes in the religious doc- 
trines of John Wesley. He was educated in the public schools of 
this neighborhood, and inherited some of the musical attainments 
of his father and family. He took an active part in political mat- 
ters in the county before he arrived at the age of twenty-one, being 
a firm friend and admirer of the late Elbert Fowler in his political 



704 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



fortunes. On the 25th of October, 1894, he was united in marriage 
with Miss Alice Ford, a daughter of William Ford and Cynthia 
Ford, now residents of Lick Creek, Green Sulphur District, on the 
old William McXeer place. Walter Boude's three children are 
Daisy Nickell, aged ten years : Clinton Ford, aged six years, and 
Mary Lee, aged three years. He was a candidate for assessor of 
internal revenue at the election of 1884, being the nominee of his 
party, but was defeated by the Rev. William Dobbins, an inde- 
pendent candidate. In 1888 he again received the nomination of 
his party for the same office and was successful, being elected 
over his opponent, J. F. Ellison, by fifty- two majority, and was 
elected at the election of 1892 over his oppoent, William DeQuasie, 
by 382 votes, filling the office acceptably to his constituents for 
two full terms of eight years. In 1896 he made the race for the 
Democratic nomination for clerk of the circuit court against B. L. 
Hoge, the incumbent, who held the position for eighteen years by 
election, and in the race he was again successful, defeating Mr. 
. Hoge for the nomination, and was elected by 168 majority over 
his Republican opponent. He held this office for the full term of 
six years, and was again nominated by his party in 1902 without 
opposition, and was elected by a majority of 392 over L. L. Lilly, 
the Republican nominee, and is now serving his second term in 
that position. He is pleasing in personality, good of heart, kind 
and charitable of disposition, being uniformly courteous to friends 
and foes. He has opponents, but no enemies. His success has 
been attained by his own efforts and strong personality, beginning 
at the lowest rung of fortune's ladder and working upward. He 
is a stockholder in a number of the principal business enterprises 
in the county, and believes in taking care of home interests before 
going abroad for investment. In 1905 he made a tour of the West, 
taking in some 9,000 miles, including in his travels a visit to the 
Lewis and Clark Exposition and the Yellowstone Xational Park. 
Before his return he wrote a series of articles on his adventures, 
which were published in the weekly series in the ''Summers Re- 
publican," which were enjoyable reading for the pleasant style of 
composition, as well as the facts taken from his observations. 

Rev. Adam P. Boude was at one time presiding elder of Green- 
brier District of the Baltimore Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church South. We are indebted to the pen of Rev. A. P. 
Boude for the early historv of the familv. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 705 



THE FARLEY FAMILY. 

This very large, well-known family in Pipestem District orig- 
inated from one man, whose name was Drewry Farley, who came 
from Albemarle County, Virginia, and settled in what is now Pipe- 
stem District, where Alexander Farley now lives, only a few 
hundred yards from Farley Post Office. He was the first settler 
in Pipestem District, and the many hardships and privations, clear- 
ing up the forest, fighting wild animals and, what was worse, the 
savage Indians, will scarcely ever be known. 

Drewry Farley was born about the year 1760, was a soldier of 
the Revolution, early after which (the time is not definitely known), 
he crossed the Allegheny Mountains from Albemarle County, Vir- 
ginia, and settled, as above stated, near Farley Post Office. He 
married a Miss Adkins, who was closely related to the mother of 
Mr. Parker J. Bennett. 

To Drewry Farley and wife were born the following children, 
viz: Gideon, Andrew, Frank, Archibald, Squire (died in Indiana), 
Nancy (the first wife of David Cook), Isaac (who is the father of 
Erastus B. Farley, of near Jumping Branch), Chloe, Rachel (who 
married Henry Kaylor), Henley (who married a daughter of 
"Bearwallow Bob" Lilly, and settled on the bench of Bluestone 
River, in Jumping Branch District, and who is the father of J. A., 
Rev. Drewry, Robert H. and Pleasant H. Farley and two daugh- 
ters), ^nd Drewry Farley (who is the father of James I., Alex- 
ander, Geo. W. Farley, deceased, and four daughters, the oldest 
of whom married Edmund Lilley, of Mercer County, and a son 
of Rev. Joseph Lilly). All the sons and daughters of* the ancient 
Drewry Farley have been passed over the river for several years, 
as well as several of their children. The old gentleman himself 
died in the year 1851, at the age of ninety-one years. 

Drewry Farley had two cousins in this country, whose names 
were Captain- Mat Farley and George Farley. Captain Mat set- 
tled on New River, on the same farm owned and occupied by 
James Dickson, in Forest Hill District, of this county. Little is 
known of his family, as early in life his only son married the only 
daughter of Samuel Peck, and moved to Indiana, along with 
the Cook brothers, mention of which was made in the history of 
the Cooks. The other cousin, George, settled on GatlifTe's Island, 
now known as Barker's Island, and very little is known of his 
family, except one son, Beury, who was born on GatlifTe's. now 



706 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Barker's Island, and when he came of age he went to Logan 
County, West Virginia, and after a few years returned, and lived 
for two years with Grandison Landcraft, on New River, in Forest 
Hill District, of this county. He afterwards went to Giles County, 
Virginia, where he married, reared a family and died about the 
year 1898, near Pembroke, Giles County, Virginia, at the advanced 
age of one hundred and nine years. 

The families of the three sons, Gideon, Andrew and Archi- 
bald, as well as the sister Nancy, who married David Cook, have 
been mentioned in detail in the history of the Cook family, and 
reference is made to this history for particulars as to these par- 
ticular families. Henry Farley has also been mentioned in the 
history of the Cook family, and reference is made to this history 
for particulars as to these families. Henley Farley has also been 
mentioned in the history of the Lilly family, he having married a 
Lilly, as above stated ; and so the Farley, Cook, Lilly and Meador 
families have so intermarried that their family histories- are very 
closely blended. Inasmuch as this history is a history of Summers 
County only, the remainder of the Farley family, living as they do, 
outside of the limits of this county, can not be mentioned on ac- 
count of space. 

Of the family of Gideon Farley, only the following children 
are living, viz. : Polly (who married Jackson Petrey, and now 
lives in Kanawha County, West Virginia) ; Nelson, John, Frank, 
William, Nancy (who married Reubin Hopkins) and Malinda (who 
married Solon Meador). 

Of the family of Andrew Farley none are left except Joel, 
now living with his son-in-law, Air. W. O. Farley, and Jackson, 
now living on New River Bench, not far from Bull Falls, and Mrs. 
Ida Hughes. 

Of the family of Nancy, who married David Cook, none are 
living except' Mrs. Martha Vest, of near Jumping Branch, W. Va. 

Of the family of Archibald Farley the following are living, viz. : 
Albert G. P., Henley C, Mrs. Philena Wiley, Henderson, of Kan- 
sas, Anderson P., and Lewis W. Farley, now living on the old home- 
stead in Pipestem District. 

Madison Farley, the oldest son of Archibald and Jemima Far- 
ley, was born January 21, 1833, near the place of his death, and 
grew up to be a strong, vigorous and energetic young man. 
He married Miss Harriet M. Wilburn, of Giles County, W. Va.. 
a very estimable laday ; she was a niece of Gordon L. Jordan, 
of Pipestem, and who was Summers County's first representative 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 707 



in the West Virginia legislature. To this union were born four 
sons and three daughters, mention of whom has already been 
made. Uncle Mat, as he was familiarly called, was truly a good 
man, having, as he did, strong religious and political convictions, 
a soldier in the service of the Confederacy, always brave and 
zealous in the cause he espoused, and upon his return to civil and 
domestic life his character was unspotted, and he was afterward 
called upon to fill several places of honor and trust, which he 
filled with entire satisfaction to the people. He was no less zeal- 
ous in his religious affiliations, being a member of the M. E. 
church. He lived a pure and spotless life, until February 28, 1906, 
when he died at his old home near the place of his birth, at the 
age of seventy-four years. Wm. O. Farley, his son, is now a 
member of the county court of Summers County, elected in 1902. 

The Farley family is also located throughout Raleigh and Mer- 
cer Counties. John Farley is, no doubt, the oldest member of the 
family now living. He at one time lived on Slab Fork, in the 
county of Raleigh, but at this date and for years past has resided 
on the waters of Little Bluestone River, in Summers County. 
He is now ninety-eight years of age, and, remarkable to say, re- 
tains the-faculties of his early days. A wonderful transformation 
is now taking place in his life. For forty years his hair and beard 
were snow-white, but within the last few years it has been grow- 
ing darker, until now it is almost as black as it was in his early 
youth. In the summer of 1906 he joined the church, and has been 
a faithful attendant upon divine worship since. In his early days 
he was a famous hunter in that region, and claims the distinction 
of having killed the last panthers ever slain in Raleigh and Sum- 
mers counties. In politics he is a Democrat, and always has been. 
His first vote was cast in 1832 for "Old Hickory" Andrew Jackson, 
and he has never missed an election since during all these years. 
Like the mountaineer, he is a partisan and a fighter. 

THE PIONEERS OF PIPESTEM. 

As noted above, Drewry Farley was the first settler in Pipestem 
District, and was soon followed by the following named persons 
consecutively, viz. : Daniel Cook, James Houchins (the grand- 
father of Ballard Houchins, an honored citizen of Pipestem Dis- 
trict), who settled on the farm now owned and occupied by Mr. 

Anderson, and lately owned and occupied by Gordon 

L. YVilburn ; John Neely, who settled on the farm now owned 



708 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and occupied by Floyd Thompson ; James Ellisin (the grand- 
father of Wm. M. Ellison), who settled on the opposite bank of 
the creek from Pipestem Post Office, and David Hughes (the 
father of William Hughes, the grandfather of H. J. Hughes 
and the great-grandfather of G. J. Hughes, of Hinton, W. Va.), 
who settled on the waters of Big Pipestem creek, on the farm 
now owned and occupied by John Richards and known as "Davy's 
Knobs." 

These old pioneers were soldiers of the "Revolution; the last- 
named was one of Washington's scouts. They were all hunters 
and Indian fighters, and many were the hardships and hair-breadth 
escapes from the tomahawk and scalping-knife of the savages. 
David Hughes, after rambling about, hunting Indians, to whom 
he was a relentless foe, made a settlement somewhere in what is 
now Wyoming County, but later went to Giles County, Virginia, 
where he joined his family, and afterwards, with his family, set- 
tled on Davy's Knobs, as above stated. 

The early settlers obtained their meat chiefly by hunting, and 
they were near New River, which abundantly supplied them with 
fish, whenever they were disposed to feast upon this delicacy. 
These early settlers were a hardy and thrifty people, and raised 
their own grain, tanned their own leather in the trough, from 
which they made themselves the "moccasin" (boots and shoes 
were to them at this time unknown), and the good old dames 
spun the wool into yarn, and the flax into thread, from which they 
made the clothing for the family. 

Other early settlers of the region, now Pipestem District, con- 
sisted of the sons and daughters of these early settlers, together 
with the following, who also deserve especial mention, viz. : 
Charles Clark, Joel Buttler, Jabez Anderson, Rufus Clark, Gar- 
land Austin, Wm. Crump, Sr., St. Clair Abbott, Jonathan Hop- 
kins, Jackson and William Keaton, Joseph Hannan and Lee Roy 
Keaton, Robert and Henry Gore, Robert Wood, Gordon L. and 
Thomas Jordan, Wm. and James Houchins, Joseph Diarly, Hugh 
Stafford, Wm. Meador, Isaiah and Tolliver Meador, David and 
Hudson Martin, Stephen Newkirk, Henry Wyrick, William No- 
ble, and perhaps others. 

These old settlers paved the way through the wilderness of 
Pipestem for a prosperous, law-abiding and God-fearing populace. 
They have built up schools, organized churches, opened up the 
paths of civilization, and made this section of our county bloom 
as the rose. But few, indeed, of this noble and self-sacrificing 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



709 



band of early settlers remain to tell their offspring o*f the dangers 
and vicissitudes of their early experiences in hewing the paths 
which they now tread so lightly, and in opening up and building 
the beautiful and pleasant homes which they now occupy, and 
which are the handiwork of the brain and brawn of their fore- 
fathers. Some rest in the shadows of the old church, and 

Some their weary hearts have laid 
Upon the shores of distant lands ; 

And their lonely graves were made 
By strangers' heedless hands. 

But their names and fame live on, and will continue to live so 
long as patriotism, bravery and self-sacrifice are virtues honored 
and cherished among men. 

HARMON. 

The Harmons w r ere among the first settlers in the Upper New T 
River V alley, w r est of the Allegheny Mountains. The name w r as 
originally Herman, and the old-time settlers in this land were 
from Germany. They have many descendants who are still resi- 
dents in McDowell, Tazewell, and that section of West Virginia 
and Virginia, and many who have been prominent in the affairs 
of the country. They were Indian fighters, as well as fighters for 
American independence. The only family of that name residing 
in this county, or that has ever resided in this county, so far as I 
know, is George W. Harmon, who now lives on Crump's (Cul- 
bertson's) Bottom, and is the owner of the better half of that great 
plantation. He purchased the interest of John G. and Ella Crock- 
ett, his wife, who was a Crump, about 1902, at the cost of about 
twenty thousand dollars. He lives in the old Crump-Crockett 
brick mansion house in the upper end of the bottom, not far from 
the location of the old Field Fort erected in Indian war times. 
He is a native of McDowell County and a rich man, and is di- 
rectly descended from the original German who settled in the 
Middle New River settlements, along with the Ingles, Drapers, 
Tygarts and others. The settlement was made about 1850, and 
known as Draper-Meadows settlement, and about the same time 
that Culbertson located his claim on Crump's Bottom. At that 
time Virginia extended from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and em- 
braced the present States of Virginia, West Virginia, Kentucky, 
Ohio, Illinois, Michigan and Wisconsin, and the population at 



710 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



that . time of that whole territory was but 82,000 souls, and all 
but a few hundred of these were east of the Blue Ridge. Those 
not east of the Blue Ridge were principally in the Valley of Vir- 
ginia, which is the territory between the Blue Ridge and the Al- 
legheny ranges. As we have stated, and it is generally claimed 
and conceded, Governor Spottswood and his Knights of the Golden 
Horseshoe, in 1716, penetrated the Blue Ridge and Swift Run 
Gap, and it was first settled in 1732 by Hite, Bowman, Lewis, 
Green and others, followed in 1734 by Morgan, Allen, Harper and 
others, and in 1738 by Benj. Burden, Patton, Christian and oth- 
ers ; but the facts are that this country had been penetrated at an 
earlier date by Colonel Abraham Wood, many years prior to 
Spottswood, and Wood was not the only one, though the first. 
As will be observed from statements hereinbefore made, in 1866, 
twelve years before Wood and fifty years before Spottswood, 
Captain Henry Batt, with his fourteen Virginians and fourteen 
Indians, started across and penetrated these mysterious regions, 
beyond the mountains from Appomattox, and in seven days they 
reached the foot of the mountains ; crossing them, they came to 
level and delightful plains, with abundant game, and here they 
discovered a river flowing westward, whicji they followed for 
some time, and came to fields and cabins lately tenanted, and 
here Captain Batt stopped, and the Indian guides refused to pro- 
ceed farther, claiming that there dwelt at that place a tribe of In- 
dians that made salt and sold it to the others. This tribe was 
claimed to be numerous and powerful, and never permitted any 
one to venture into their towns. Thereupon Captain Batt aban- 
doned his determination to proceed, gave up his exploration, and 
returned to civilization. Captain Batt no doubt knew of Wood's 
exploration, for it had only been twelve years prior. Captain Batt 
evidently struck New River, then called Wood's River, but which 
he called a "river flowing westward," thence followed the same 
down the valley along the Kanawha to what is supposed to have 
been the Campbell's Creek Salt Spring, where there are abundant 
remains of ancient Indian relics. Colonel Wood did not know the 
course of the stream, and called it Wood's River. The name 
New River and Wood's River was intended to attach to the whole 
course of the river, from its source in North Carolina to its mouth 
at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. It rises in Grandfather Moun- 
tains, in North Carolina — a seaboard State — but flows westward, 
and its waters empty into the Gulf of Mexico, cutting its way 
through the Blue Ridge, Alleghenies, and parallel ranges. The 



DAVID GRAHAM BALLANGEE, 
First Postmaster of Clayton. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



711 



first Indian depredations made against the whites west of the Al- 
leghenies was in 1749, at which time the house of Adam Harman, 
the original settler, was raided by a party of these savages and 
his fur skins stolen. The oldest map showing the New River re- 
gion was made in 1744, by Ralp D. E. Thoyers. It shows New 
River, from its source to its mouth, to be a branch of and empty 
into the Mississippi River. Wood's discovery of New River -was 
in 1654. 

The Benjamin Burden referred to in these pages was sent over 
from England as the agent of Lord Fairfax, who had large grants 
of land, chiefly in Rockbridge County. He was a man of great 
business capacity and integrity, meeting all business obligations 
and engagements with such scrupulous promptness and exactness 
that his habits became standards of comparison for others. The 
Harmons followed early across in the upper New River settlements 
in the footsteps of the explorer, but their settlements were east of 
our territory. 

INGLES AND DRAPER. 

The story of Mrs. Ingles and Mrs. Draper, who were captured 
by the Ir r 'ians and carried west of the Ohio about 1774, is one of 
great interest, and is detailed at great length by Dr. John P. Hale, 
in his Trans-Allegheny Pioneers. The only connection that cap- 
ture and escape has with Summers County is from the fact that 
these women were carried through the territory of Summers County, 
down the Xew River Valley for some thirty- five miles, and that, 
on the return of Airs. Ingles, she passed back through the same 
wilderness of Summers County. Airs. Draper and Mrs. Ingles 
were taken from the Draper-Meadows settlement ; were first car- 
ried down Xew River about forty miles, to the mouth of Indian 
Creek, which was in the line of the Indian trail. Below the mouth 
of Indian they forded New River at the War Ford. At this point, 
in 1764, Captain Paul, from Dinwiddie, attacked a party of Indians 
whom he was pursuing, killed several, stampeded the rest, and 
recovered some prisoners, among whom was Mrs. Catherine Gunn, 
from Dinwiddie. From the mouth of Indian Airs. Ingles and Airs. 
Draper were carried down the Avest side to the mouth of Bluestone 
River, where they left New River, going up Bluestone, thence 
crossing the Flat Top Mountain, and were supposed to have fol- 
lowed the present route of the Giles-Raleigh-Fayette turnpike to 
the head of Paint Creek, thence down the same to the Kanawha 
River. During this terrible trip Airs. Ingles, who was in a deli- 



712 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



cate condition, gave birth to an infant child. Mrs. Draper had 
her arm broken. It was poulticed by Mrs. Ingles — her sister-in- 
law — with leaves and wild comphry, with a salve made from the 
wild comphry plant and deer fat. Mrs. Draper was sent to a for- 
eign Indian settlement at Chillicothe, and Mrs. Ingles retained. 
They were separated after their arrival west of the Ohio. This 
Mrs. Ingles was the first white woman who ever saw the Kanawha 
River, and the first woman ever within the boundaries of Ohio, 
Indiana and Kentucky. She was retained for some time, and 
finally taken to Big Bone Lick, a long distance west of where 
Cincinnati is now located, and while there she determined to make 
her escape, taking along with her an old Dutch woman. They 
succeeded in successfully escaping, and started on their return to 
the Upper New River settlements, which required forty days, and 
during which time the only sustenance these women had was the 
wild fruits, barks and berries they could secure from the wilder- 
ness, and there were no habitations whatever to sleep in. They 
passed up the Ohio, thence up the Kanawha, then up the New 
River, passing the entire length through the county by Meadow 
Creek, New Richmond, Hinton, mouth of Bluestone and Mercer 
Salt Works, all of which was an utter wilderness and uninhabited, 
and required forty days from the time of their escape from the In- 
dians until they were rescued in the Upper New River settle- 
ments. The old Dutch woman became crazed for want of food, 
and in her desperation threatened and tried to kill Mrs. Ingles 
with cannibalistic intent, from which she succeeded in escaping, 
being 'the younger and more agile of the two, managed to cross 
the river, and separated somewhere near Crump's Bottom. After 
that they passed on up New River, one on one bank and one on 
the other, the old Dutch woman trying to persuade Mrs. Ingles 
to recross and join her, which she was afraid to do. It can be 
imagined the great hardships and the terrible privations these 
women suffered in those forty days. Snow had begun to fall be- 
fore they were rescued, the final rescue being accomplished by 
Adam Harmon, somewhere in the neighborhood of the Ingles- 
Ferry settlement. It is inconceivable almost how these women 
made the passage through the gorges from the mouth of Gauley 
to the mouth of Greenbrier. They walked, climbed, crept and 
crawled through brush, thorns and briers, over and around huge 
rocks and avalanches of debris, under and over fallen timbers and 
slippery banks, and waded creeks and rivers. There was always 
danger pending from destruction from wild animals of the forest. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



713 



This journey was quite different from a journey of the same char- 
acter over the same territory now, which is made by their great- 
great-grandchildren through these wild canyons in luxurious Pull- 
man palace cars, at the rate of forty miles per hour, when time 
and distance are annihilated. They managed in some way to make 
the perilous adventure of passing over the great cliffs of New 
River, two hundred and eighty feet high to the top, the first one 
hundred feet overhanging the river and the great pool at the base, 
where the New River makes its rift through the Alleghenies. The 
return was made by walking, running, crawling, climbing and 
wading eight hundred miles through the howling wilderness in 
forty days, and they w r ere saved at last and returned to their fami- 
lies, and lived to be very old people. A part of this daring escape 
was made through the territory of Summers Count}^. After Adam 
Harman had returned Mrs. Ingles to her family, he, with his 
boys, started down the river on a search for the old Dutch woman, 
whose name was never known, finally rescuing her and returning 
her also to the Ingles settlement. 

Mrs. Betty Draper, after six years, was finally rescued by her 
husband, after many adventures. 

LOWELL. 

A. C. Lowe and Erastus Preston Lowe were two brothers, 
sons of Joshua Lowe, of Indian Creek, in Monroe County, who 
about 1871 or '72 located at Lowell, on the Greenbrier River, and 
built at that point a two-story hotel, and engaged in the mercan- 
tile business. On the 4th of March, 1875, E. P. Lowe, the senior 
of the two brothers, while in a canoe rafting fodder down the 
Greenbrier from a short distance above Lowell, struck one of the 
stone piers in the river at that point, being one of the piers of the 
railroad bridge. His canoe was broken to pieces, and Mr. Lowe 
thrown into the river. The current being strong, he was unable 
to rescue himself or to be rescued by any one from the shore, and 
was immediately drowned. ' Immediate search began and contin- 
ued for a month and eleven days for his body, which w r as finally 
found on Woodson's Island, just below Talcott, at the mouth of 
Hungard's Creek. 

A. C. Lowe, the younger brother, married Miss Virginia Gwinn. 
daughter of Andrew Gwinn, and continued to reside at Lowell and 
was in business at that point until 1904, when he removed to the 
All Healing Springs, in Craig County, Virginia, where they still 



714 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



reside, several years before sold the hotel property to E. A. Mc- 
Neer, of Monroe County, who later sold the same to Frank Keys, 
of Keyser Mineral Co., and the same was operated by Charles W. 
Spotts, his brother-in-law, until 1905, when he died, and his widow 
and son Harry still continue to operate it. 

Lowell is only a very small village of four or five houses, a 
postoffice and depot, with two mercantile establishments. The 
name is after the Lowe brothers, above mentioned. It was for 
many years, and until 1904, an important place, however, on ac- 
count of it being the shipping -point for the Red Sulphur Springs. 
The old Graham Ferry across the Greenbrier River is at this place, 
so called for Colonel James Graham, the Indian fighter, who lived - 
at this place, as related elsewhere in this narrative. The present 
business enterprises at this place are a general mercantile estab- 
lishment, conducted by George A. Miller, L. E. Johnson and 
George K. Gwinn, of Alderson, under the firm name of Johnson, 
Gwinn & Co., the business being managed by Mr. Keller, a de- 
scendant of Conrad Keller, one of the first settlers. The other is 
Messrs. Shanklin Brothers, of Greenville, Monroe County, descend- 
ants of one of the oldest and most respected family of settlers in 
Monroe County. It is near this place Mr. Andy Gwinn resides. 
There are several residences on the opposite side of the river, and 
on that side is located the old Graham log house in which Bunyan 
L. Kesler now resides, and also Henry F. Kesler, ex-county super- 
intendent of free schools for two terms, sons of Abraham C. Kesler, 
and brothers of ex-Sheriff O. T. Kesler. 

MIKE FOSTER. 

Mike Foster was an humble citizen of Summers County, who 
became a Confederate soldier during the Civil War. He was one 
of the bravest of the brave soldiers who fought in that war on 
either the Union or the Confederate side. He was desperately 
wounded, from which he died soon after the war was closed, and 
was buried at the cemetery at Forest Hill. His grave remained 
unmarked until 1907, when some of his old comrades and soldiers 
of the Confederacy, as a mark of their admiration for this humble 
but gallant man, undertook to erect a monument at his grave. 
Subscriptions were secured throughout this and Monroe counties, 
and on the 15th day of October, 1907, a beautiful shaft was un- 
veiled in the presence of one of the largest, if not the largest, 
crowds of people that ever assembled within the boundaries of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 715 



the county outside of Hinton. There were estimated to be three 
thousand people present. At eleven o'clock a procession was mar- 
shalled by Adjutant J. D. McCartney, led by the Alderson band, 
which marched from the village of Forest Hill to the cemetery 
surrounding the Baptist Church. Fifty-five sturdy old soldiers of 
the Confederacy, headed by Squire R. A. Hall, of Camp Mike Fos- 
ter, took part in the parade. A number of other veterans were 
present. After making a circuit of the cemetery, the procession 
halted opposite the speakers' stand. The platform was prettily 
decorated with Confederate colors, the Confederate flag and the 
Stars and Stripes being intermingled and prominent. Over the 
grave of Alike Foster floated the Confederate battle flag, the em- 
blem under which he had fought so dauntlessly. Among those 
who lent a helping hand in the decorations were Misses Tinie 
Meadows, Gertrude Cunningham, Cora Hutchinson, Berta Lowe, 
Bessie McNeer, Esther Michael, Maud Michael and others. The 
vast assemblage promptly came to order, and Rev. Henry Dillon, 
one of the Summers County noblemen, invoked the blessing of 
Almighty God upon the exercise in a beautiful prayer. At his 
conclusion the monument to the dead soldier was unveiled, the 
cords being drawn by four charming young ladies, dressed in white 
and wearing red, . white and blue sashes. These young ladies were 
Misses Lula.M. Ellison, Mattie F. Webb, Lola M. Vass and Nora 
M. Hutchinson. As the veil fell away and the handsome monument 
was revealed to the eyes of the multitude, three cheers were given 
for Mike Foster and his comrades, and the band played a stirring 
patriotic air, after which Rev. Henry Dillon offered a second 
prayer, brief and impressive, and introducing by a few appropriate 
remarks the orator of the day, Hon. John W. Arbuckle, of Lewis- 
burg, who, by the way, is a descendant of the famous Captain 
Matthew Arbuckle, of Indian fame, and one of the warriors who 
fought in the battle of Point Pleasant. Mr. Arbuckle's address 
was in every way worthy the occasion, eloquent, noble in senti- 
ment, chaste in diction, and it was one of the finest speeches and 
most admirable orations ever delivered within the county. He 
paid a beautiful tribute to the departed soldier, and also to the 
cause for which he suffered, touching upon the tenderest memo- 
ries and dwelling upon the valor and fortitude which have crowned 
the people of the South with imperishable glory. At its con- 
clusion the veteran soldiers pressed forward to shake his hand, 
and an impromptu reception was held, while the band played 
"Dixie." . This oration of Senator Arbuckle, who has for many 



716 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



years been a practicing attorney in Summers County, and who 
has also represented the county and the people in the Senate of 
the State, will be placed in the hands of a committee for publi- 
cation. Hon. A. S. Johnston, in his paper, "The Monroe Watch- 
man," speaking of the occasion, says that "nothing could have 
exceeded the hospitality of these kind people. There was the 
greatest abundance of good things to eat, the most cordial invita- 
tion to everybody, and, notwithstanding the size of the crowd, 
nobody went away hungr} r , and many more could have been fed. 
It was a veritable feast of plenty and good-will." The afternoon 
was spent in delightful social amenities, and a reunion of Marse 
Robert's old soldiers, who together turned anew the pages of their 
battle years. If in the economy of God the spirit of Mike Foster 
was permitted to look upon the scene, he must in Paradise have 
had an added happiness. 

The event was in every way creditable to the people of Forest 
Hill and vicinity, and to the committee who carried this honorable 
undertaking to a conclusion so successful, and to the kind ladies, 
whose help was invaluable. The monument is a handsome shaft 
of white marble of graceful proportions, its apex being ten feet 
from the ground. On the spire above the inscription in front are 
carved crossed rifles, the insignia of the infantry service. The 
inscription on the die in front is as follows : "Mike Foster,^ a 
sharpshooter .of Stonewall Brigade, C. S. A. ; born 1841 ; desper- 
ately wounded near Petersburg, Va., in 1865, and died of his 
wounds May 22, 1875." On the left : "Volunteered in the Mon- 
roe Guards, 27th Virginia Infantry, 1861, and in this company of 
heroes was distinguished for gallantry on every battlefield." On 
the right, "He trod the path of duty, which is the way to glory." 

Mike Foster was supposed to have been killed when he was 
wounded at Petersburg, and was left on the field. General Terry, 
the gallant commander of the Confederate States Army, sent a 
flag of truce for his body. The party with the flag of truce found 
him alive, but he was so seriously wounded that on the retreat he 
was left in the city of Petersburg, and there received the kind at- 
tention of the Federal as well as the Confederate surgeons until 
he was removed to his home. His general, as a tribute to his 
bravery, gave him a wreath of flowers as the bravest in the Stone- 
wall Brigade. The ladies of Rockbridge sent to General Jackson 
five suits of clothes, one to the bravest man in each regiment, and 
a wreath of flowers to the bravest man in the Stonewall Brigade. 
He gave the wreath to Mike Foster. There are soldiers still living 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



717 



who were with Mike Foster from Manassas to the hour he re- 
ceived his wounds in front of Petersburg,- who bear testimony that 
the action of Stonewall Jackson met with the approval of all of 
his soldiers, in delivering this wreath to the selection he made — 
the humble citizen from the territory of Summers County. He 
died the death of a Christian, and has joined the army of the re- 
deemed. 

I am indebted to Hon. A. S. Johnston, and have employed his 
description of the occasion of the unveiling of this monument. 

Mike Foster has a number of relatives in this county and in 
Monroe County, among them being W. L. Foster, of Forest Hill, 
who was active in securing the monument to the dead soldier. 
Those who were Confederates and those who were Unionists, on 
the occasion of the unveiling of this monument, took an equal in- 
terest in its successful consummation, and all took an equal part, 
showing that the old spirit of antagonism growing out of that 
unfortunate war has disappeared from the pepole within this sec- 
tion. 

When a camp of Confederate soldiers was organized a few 
years ago in Monroe County, it was unanimously named Camp 
Mike Foster, after this soldier, and in honor of his great gallantry 
and bravery. 

There was an organization at Forest Hill of old soldiers and 
citizens known as "The Mike Foster Monument Association," 
through whose activity and patriotism the erection and dedication 
of the monument was made a success, among whom were L. A. 
Ellison, secretary and treasurer; Sheriff I. G. Carden, J. M. Allen, 
W. L. Foster and Theodore Webb. 

Hon. M. M. Warren and Hon. A. S. Johnston were also active, 
and aided very greatly in the successful termination of the project, 
as well as J. D. McCartney, the soldier of the Stonewall Brigade, 
and the possessor of its battle-flag, carried on many a battlefield. 

LUTHER M. DUNN. 

This gentleman was one of the founders of Hinton. He came 
here when the county and city were young, and in his youth. He 
was born in Albemarle County, Virginia, near Scottsville. His 
father was a minister of the Christian Church. He enlisted in the 
Confederate Army when a boy of eighteen, and, after the fall of 
the Confederacy, while the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway was being 
built through this section, came and located in Hinton. when there 



718 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



were not more than half a dozen houses in the town, and entered 
into the retail mercantile business, with a Hebrew by the name of 
Goldsmith, the style of the firm being Dunn & Goldsmith. He 
was born on February 16, 1843. and died in Hinton on the third 
day of September,, 1904.. at the age of sixty-one years, and was 
first married to Miss Atkinson, of Hinton. and on the third day of 
July, 1890, to Mrs. M. J. Luck, who survives him and is still a 
resident of the county. 

''Squire" Dunn, as he was familiarly called, was a familiar face 
in the town of Hinton from its foundation to the date of his death : 
was noted for his natural ability, shrewdness and kindness of heart. 
He was enterprising and took an active interest and pride in the 
growth of the town and development of the county. 

It was his brother, the civil engineer. B. R. Dunn, who laid out 
the town of Hinton and made the first official map thereof, which 
is recorded in Deed Book "A." at page 540, in the office of the 
clerk of the county court. Another brother also was the chief 
engineer^of the Chesapeake & Ohio Railroad and its general man- 
ager for a number of years. 

Soon after the location of Mr. Dunn in the county, the first and 
only suit brought in the county against any one was brought by 
Charles Garten against the firm of Dunn & Goldsmith for selling 
liquor to a person who was in the habit of drinking to intoxication. 
This firm was engaged in the retail business, and a young man 
by the name of ''Tack''" Garten came to Hinton, became intoxicated, 
and undertook to ford Greenbrier River when not fordable. and 
was. unfortunately, drowned, and from which misfortune the liti- 
gation was instituted, but the action was afterwards dismised and 
never tried. 

Mr. Dunn was a man of fine business qualifications. Business 
reverses did not discourage him. When the railroad was being 
built through this section the company paid off its laborers and 
contractors in '"scrip." of which he acquired many thousands of 
dollars. The company failed and went into the hands of a receiver, 
and thus he lost his entire fortune. He again went to work. and. 
after many business enterprises, ups and downs, died, leaving a 
considerable fortune. It was he and Dr. J. T. Hume who recog- 
nized the early growth of real estate in value and demand for good, 
substantial business houses, and constructed the large three-story 
brick business building on the corner of Second Avenue and Tem- 
ple Street, known as the "Dunn & Hume Building." which has been 
occupied for many years as the large retail mercantile establish- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 719 



ment of Wm. Plumley, Jr., the third story being occupied as a 
public hall for nearly all the secret orders of the city. 

He was the first, postmaster of the city of Hinton, and 
took charge when the compensation was only the amount 
received for the cancellation of stamps, the office being es- 
tablished in 1873. He held the position of postmaster for 
twelve years, during which time he was elected justice of the 
peace of Greenbrier District, and was a member of the county 
court under the old Constitution. At that time the office paid 
but a small compensation, but later became a desirable and well- 
paying position. He held the office for sixteen years. His de- 
cisions were seldom reversed when appealed from, and his good 
judgment was never better shown than in the many decisions ren- 
dered by him in this office. The business in this office filled some 
twenty volumes of well-bound record books, the size of deed books. 

He was popular, and, although a member of the minority party, 
always received many votes from the opposition. He was noted 
for his keen wit and greatly enjoyed a joke and enjoyed the bright 
side of life. He was a Republican in politics for the last twenty 
years of his life, having transferred his political affiliation during 
the time of one of the numerous post office contests in the city 
of Hinton, after the office became a paying and valuable position. 
He was for some five years the coroner of the county and a notary 
public for many years — a man of warm impulses and of high, hon- 
orable instincts, with many of the traits of the "old Virginia gen- 
tleman." He had but few enemies and many friends. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



MISCELLANEOUS. 

Summers County has produced one of the most learned scien- 
tific gentlemen of the country in the person of William Hinton, 
Sr., now seventy-four years of age, and a son of David Hinton, of 
near Greenville, in Monroe County — an old Rockingham County, 
Virginia, family. He is a scientific civil engineer, and has pat- 
ented the following useful and valuable inventions : 

First — An engineering compass or calculator, which makes and 
records the work as it proceeds — trigonometer. 

Second — Monkey-wrench. 

Third — A bottle stopper. 

Fourth — An instrument for the use of civil engineers and sur- 
veyors, which gives the correct variation of the needle, the true 
meridian, and records same; and he is at work on the fifth at this 
date. 

He is a quiet, unassuming, steady worker and a genius ; but his 
works may not be fully realized in his clay. 

Another Summers County man's invention is a rosette cutter, 
patented by "Coon" Cooper and Jas. H. Miller. 

Another is the Charlton curtain, by Dean Charlton of Mad- 
am's Creek. This curtain is now being manufactured by the Charl- 
ton Curtain Co., a Hinton company chartered under the laws of 
West Virginia, with Dr. J. F. Bigony as president and H. Ewart 
as secretary. Its factory is in Avis, and was established in 1907. 

Another is a patent window curtain holder apparatus, by Mrs. 
J. Ellen Miller, of the Hotel Miller, wife of James W. Miller, pat- 
ented in 1903, and she is the only lady patentee in the history of 
Summers County. 

Another is a patent car coupler, by W. B. Jones and Colonel 
T. G. Mann. 

M. B. Simmons, a painter at the round house for the C. & O. 
Railway, has patented a very valuable liniment medicine, from 
which he will likelv make a fortune. « 




ANDREW P. PENCE, 
The Coroner and Promoter of Pence Springs. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 721 



Hon. M. M. Warren and M. M. Altair, of Riff's Crossing, have 
patented a valuable cattle guard for use on railroad tracks. 

Rev. Leonidas L. Huffman, a son of Samuel Huffman, of Wolf 
Creek, is the author of a religious book, copyrighted under the title 
of "Religious Similitude." 

HINTON LODGE No. 821, B. P. O. E. 

This order was instituted January 5, 1903, and occupied the 
Dunn & Hume Hall, in the third story of the building of that name, 
on the corner of Temple Street and Third Avenue. It also in- 
stalled a neat suite of chambers on the second floor of the same 
building, in which they placed piano, pianola, billiard tables and 
other furniture for amusement, rest and recreation. 

The first officers were : 

Esteemed Ruler — R. F. Dunlap. 

Esteemed Leading Knight — F. R. Puckett. 

Esteemed Lecturer — W. H. Sawyers. 

Treasurer — W. H. Garnett. 

Secretary — C. C. Campbell. 

Inner Guard — T. C. Ware. 

Tiler — Dr. T. O. Flanagan. 

Trustees— Dr. J. T. Humes, W. L. Fredeking, W. E. Parker. 
Esquire — O. C. Lowe. 

In 1906 the order erected its handsome four-story building, at 
a cost of $30,000, on Second Avenue. Much of the honor thereof is 
due to Mr. J. Donald Humphries, the merchant, now in business 
in the city. 

HINTON LODGE, A. F. & A. M. 

This order was chartered November 11, 1885, when there were 
comparatively few inhabitants, and those were in meager circum- 
stances, and the prospects for Masonry were dark. The "Old 
Guard" has largely passed to the great beyond, but their names 
and work for the order are revered by those devoted to the cause. 

The past masters to date are as follows : M. V. Calloway, A. 
T. Maupin, P. K. Litsinger, E. H. Peck, D. R. Swisher, T. G. 
Swatts, C. J. Anderson, F. M. Starbuck, W. W. Humes, J. G. Haley, 
Frank Lively, J. B. Parrott, J. L. Brightwell, W. L. Wilson, Lynn 
Gardener, Dr. T. O. Flanagan and L. J. Shelton. 

There have been but few secretaries, those occupying the po- 
sition succeeding each other at long intervals. Those filling that 



722 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



position are: P. K. Litsinger, Frank Lively. J. B. Harris and T. 
O. Flanagan. 

The lodge as originally instituted was known as "Whit comb 
Lodge,'' Xo. 62, named after Mr, Whitcomb, one of the civil engi- 
neers who built the C. & O. Railway. This was changed to Hinton 
Lodge, Xo. 12, November 11, 1885. 

Hinton Commandery was chartered July 28, 1898. There are 
a great number of orders in the city, including Eagles, Red Men. 
Knights of Pythias, Odd Fellows, Brotherhood of Locomotive 
Engineers, Brotherhood of Trainmen and Conductors. There is 
no town of the size in the country in which the secret orders flour- 
ish more liberally than in Hinton, many of which carry a liberal in- 
surance in connection therewith, and which has been of great bene- 
fit to those injured by accident or otherwise, as well as their fami- 
lies. 

THE C. & O. RAILWAY CO. 

This corporation is largely identified with the history of Sum- 
mers County. When originally chartered, it was the Chesapeake 
& Ohio Railroad Company. C. P. Huntington and General Williams 
C. Wickham being the promoters. Soon after its completion it 
went into the hands of a receiver — was sold in judicial proceedings, 
reorganization took place under new charters, and the Chesapeake 
& Ohio Railway Company., with C. P. Huntington as president, 
and General Williams C. Wickham as vice-president. 

It extends from Alderson, at the county line, down Greenbrier 
River, a distance of twenty miles : thence down Xew River to the 
Fayette line, a distance of about fifteen miles, making between 
thirty-five and forty miles of track in the county. Soon after its 
construction it erected at Pence's Springs depot, large and com- 
modious cattle pens and stockyards, and the station at that point 
was known as "Stockyards." The land surrounding is now owned 
by ex-Sheriff O. T. Kesler, but was then owned by Silas R. Mason, 
a railroad contractor. About 1902 the stockyards were removed 
to the town of Avis, and the railway station was changed to Pence 
Springs. Immediately after the location of the line of the railroad, 
the excavations for the round-house at Hinton were begun by 
Alexander Atkinson, an Irish-American contractor, and father of 
Captain Frank Atkinson, a passenger conductor at present; also of 
Miss Maggie Atkinson, of Hinton. The work was stopped on the 
round-house when the C. & O. Railroad Company went into the 
hands of a receiver, but afterwards completed on its reorganization. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY; WEST VIRGINIA. 



723 



The first passenger depot was a one-story frame building im- 
mediately opposite the Hinton ferry. This was converted into a 
freight depot in the year 1900, and the large brick passenger depot 
and offices erected at the present site. Hinton has been the end of 
the Huntington division since the construction of the road, and has 
practically been all the time the headquarters for the superinten- 
dent and operative and office forces. There are but a few of the 
old railway employees in this section who were connected with its 
operation upon its completion. The first division superintendent 
was Thomas Sharp, a Virginian, and the father of Mrs. M. J. Cook, 
Thomas Lee Sharp and Mrs. Professor Koontz. The first passen- 
ger conductor running into Hinton was Captain Phil Cason, who 
now runs from Richmond to Newport Xews. His boarding place 
was with Mrs. M. S. Gentry, in the old log homestead of the Hin- 
ton's by the side of the railroad track, at the crossing in Avis. 

L. S. Alley was one of the first locomotive engineers who ever 
ran on this road. He was a native of Prince George County, Vir- 
ginia, born the 8th day of September. 1832, and is now retired on 
pay for his faithful service to the company, and resides at Alder- 
son, West A'irginia. He commenced running on this road in 1852, 
before it passed this side of the Jackson River. His first trip 
west of White Sulphur in the Allegheny Mountains was in the 
latter part of 1873. He was a famous old Virginia gentleman, 
known far and near by all railroad men. It is an interesting and 
entertaining pastime to talk with this old pioneer about railroad- 
ing in the early days. He was a railroad locomotive engineer dur- 
ing the Civil War, running from Jackson River Depot to Staunton. 
During the Avar, about forty-five years ago, a train load of soldiers 
was brought from Staunton to Jackson River by this old veteran 
on a stormy day. It was bitter cold, and the night closed in with 
flakes of flying snow from the neighboring mountains, when En- 
gineer Alley pulled into Jackson River Depot. He grasped his 
lantern, his day's work finished and well done, and started for 
home, where he knew comforts awaited him. As he started he 
met at the door of the telegraph office four or five soldiers, who 
were seeking some place of shelter, all of the public houses being 
filled to overflowing. Out of the goodness of his heart he took 
each of them home with him and gave them a hearty Virginia 
welcome. 

The following is taken from a letter written to Mr. Alley by 
one of these soldiers forty-three years afterwards : "Ah, how well 
I remember, when we reached your house, you knocked on the 



724 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

door, and a soft, tender voice asked 'Who is there?' 'It is me, 
Cassie, and I have brought some Georgia soldiers to spend the 
night with us.' She replied, 'They are more than welcome if they 
are soldiers — it matters not from where they are.' And of the 
little squad of soldiers that sat at your table that November night, 
I believe I am the only one who has not passed over the river to 
rest under the trees." 

It is pleasant to talk to this old pioneer railroader, and hear him 
recount the reminiscences of the early dangers encountered through 
the wilds of this region. He is succeeded by a generation of rail- 
roaders, his son, Lon Alley, being now one of the trusted engi- 
neers running a passenger train between Hinton and Clifton Forge. 
Mr. Alley began running on the Danville road in 1857. 

The first superintendent of this section was Captain Joe Mal- 
lory; the first engineer of maintenance of way was William M. S. 
Dunn, a brother of the late Luther M. Dunn, of Hinton. The first 
engineer of the construction was H. D. Whitcomb, assistant of 
- Major McKenrie; also Captain Talcott, after whom the town of 
Talcott was named; Captain Temple, after whom Temple Street 
was named, and Major Randolph, who was killed by a blast at 
New River Falls during the construction at that place. H. D. 
Whitcomb was also superintendent, the third; J. H. Gill being the 
second ; the fourth was John H. Timberlake ; the fifth, Thomas 
Dodemead; the sixth, H. D. Whitcomb; seventh, Superintendent 
Perry; eighth, William M. S. Dunn; ninth, W. S. Rider, univer- 
sally disliked for his tyrannical disposition and his uncalled-for 
interference in matters not pertaining to his business or that of 
the corporation by whom he was employed. The tenth was a Mr. 
Harris from New York State; the eleventh was a Mr. Cutter; the 
twelfth was H. R. Dills, who was promoted from train dispatcher. 
It was through his efforts, with those of a number of enterprising 
citizens of the city, that the yards in Avis were secured, and an 
apparent permanency given to the city, he and the writer having 
negotiated a portion of the land from the late Evi Ballangee for 
these yards. The thirteenth superintendent was again J. H. Gill, 
and the fourteenth was Mr. J. W. Knapp, now superintendent of 
the Richmond Division, and who, by his having resided long in 
this city and his disposition to aid in its advancement, became 
universally endeared to its people. The fifteenth is J. W. Car- 
lisle, now at Clifton Forge, and the present and sixteenth is E. W. 
Grice. George Thomasson, C. B. Mahan, J. H. King were among 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



725 



the first conductors. T. G. Swatts, George Showalter, Henry An- 
carrow, engineers. 

John Roadcap was one of the oldest fireman on this division. 
He was killed in an accident at Stretcher's Neck Tunnel. John 
Wilkins was one of the ancient engineers. Engineer Alley, who 
is referred to in these pages, was promoted from fireman to en- 
gineer in 1852. He retired from the service in July, 1898. He was 
exceedingly fortunate, never having received an injury or hurt in 
any way in his railroading experience, although he was in four 
head-end collisions, two rear-end collisions and a number of small 
mishaps. He had considerable experience in hauling soldiers dur- 
ing the war. The road has greatly increased its service, efficiency 
and has aided materially in the development of this region. The 
road was operated for some time as the Newport News & Mis- 
sissippi Valley Co. 

This railroad has become one of the great trunk lines of the 
country. For several years after its completion its service was 
very inefficient and the tonnage light. Inducements were offered 
by the corporation to secure enterprises along the line which would 
increase the tonnage, and of late years the trouble has been to 
provide transportation for the productions produced on the main 
line and its branches, the principal of which has been coal from 
the New River and Kanawha fields, and timber. The stations in 
this county are one at the old Mohler switch, which was aban- 
doned for a number of years, but recently re-opened. A 
short line built by the Commonwealth Lumber Company 
crosses the Greenbrier River to the mouth of Griffith's Creek, 
and extends up that creek into the Jarrett Survey of land, 
covering the top of the Keeney's Knobs, and extending 
into the headwaters of Lick Creek country. The broad-gauge 
track with steam power used for hauling manufactured lumber 
from those lands, and a little town has grown up at the junction 
of the main line. The next station is at the mouth of Wolf Creek, 
and is the shipping point for the Big Wolf Creek Valley and sur- 
rounding country. The next is Riffe's Crossing, which is a local 
stop for local passengers only. Pence Springs is the next station, 
which was known as the Stock Yards for twenty years. After the 
removal of these cattle pens to Hinton, the station was named 
Pence Springs. Three miles west is Lowell, and a mile and a half 
west of that place is Talcott ; then Wiggins, or better known as 
Don, four miles east of Hinton; then Hinton; then Barkedale, 
about four miles west of Hinton, which is a shipping point only 



726 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

for manufactured timber; Brooks, a mile west; then Sandstone, or 
New Richmond ; then Meadow Creek, which is a mile and a half 
east of the Fayette County line. 

This road was originally commenced some years before the 
war, and constructed to Jackson's River. The war commenced 
and stopped all railroad construction. A few years after its ter- 
mination C. P. Huntington, the New York capitalist, secured con- 
trol of that road known as the Covington & Virginia, secured a 
charter from the West Virginia Legislature, and constructed the 
road into White Sulphur Springs, and later on to the Ohio River 
at Huntington, which city was founded by Collis P. Huntington, 
and named for him. He also constructed the link between White 
Sulphur and Huntington, beginning work from both ends. The 
road was let to contract in mite sections, and the last spike was 
driven near the Hawk's Nest by a contractor by the name of 
C. R. Mason, who worked as a laborer with a wheelbarrow when 
a boy when the road began. The first engines were fired with, 
cordwood, and later with coal secured from the New River mines. 
Only a few freight trains ran at the beginning, and only local pas- 
senger trains were operated. There were no sleepers or Pullmans, 
and the mails were not carried for some time. In a short time 
after its completion, being unable to meet its interest, the mort- 
gages were foreclosed and it was sold, being purchased and trans- 
ferred to the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway Co. In the meantime 
Mr. Huntington formed some kind of a syndicate, with which he 
placed this line, and it was operated for a year or two under the 
name of the Ohio & Mississippi Valley Railway. M. E. Ingalls 
was made president later, and operated its lines with the Big 
Four, or the C, C, C. & St. L. Railway, of which he was president 
also. Afterwards George W. Stevens was made president, and 
so continues. Prior to his becoming president he was general man- 
ager of the road under Ingalls. As its business has increased 
it has enlarged its facilities by increasing the yards in Hinton, and 
by double-tracking all of the line in Summers County. The large 
wooden trestles originally constructed over the ravines and creeks 
were replaced with substantial stone abutments and iron super- 
structures. The bridge across Greenbrier at Lowell was torn down 
and a new steel bridge superstructure placed in its stead, without 
suspension of the operation of trains. The Big Bend Tunnel was 
arched with brick, and the old wooden arch taken out, which oc- 
cupied ten years' time, but the traffic was not stopped a moment 
during the time, except temporarily for a few hours sometimes by 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 727 



reason of the debris falling in. The double track was never laid 
through the Big Bend Tunnel, and during its construction the 
main line ran around the end of the mountain through which the 
Little Bend Tunnel passes. 

The first line surveyed for the main line of the railway was 
through Keeney's Knobs from Alderson, down Lick Creek to its 
mouth, but it was abandoned and the present route secured. The 
principal rights-of-way from the land owners were secured by 
Robert F. Dennis, a lawyer of Lewisburg. Comparatively little 
of the rights-of-way were condemned. Mr. Huntington purchased, 
about the time he was securing right-of-way, or soon after, the 
land on which Hinton is built from Rufus Pack, administrator of 
the estate of Isaac Ballangee, in the name of the railway company, 
and later organized the Central Land Company and transferred the 
land to that company. He did the same at Huntington, purchasing 
the real estate upon which that city is built, and transferring it to 
the Central Land Company, of which he was the president until 
his death. The charter for that corporation expired some years 
before his death, a receiver was appointed, who took charge of all 
the lands, and the titles were passed by a commissioner of the 
United States Court, until after his death, when the property was 
all sold and purchased by a syndicate of Huntington and Charles- 
ton people, who immediately sold the Hinton interest remaining 
undisposed of by the special receiver to William Plumley, Jr., and 
E. H. Peck. They disposed of a considerable amount of the prop- 
erty in lots, and then sold the remainder in a body to Col. J. A. 
Parker, who now owns the same, amounting to sixty or seventy 
acres. 

The first telegraph operator at Hinton was a man by the name 
of Robert Baird, who had his office in a box car. The old-style 
telegraph was still in use, and the machines operated by the tel- 
egraphers were a curiosity. At this date the last" one remaining 
in use in the United States, so far as known, was by W. J. Han- 
cock at Alderson. The only telegraph line ever doing business in 
this county has been that of the W estern Union, and the only 
express company doing business is the Adams Express Company, 
the telegraph and express business being operated in connection 
with the railway business. The division headquarters have always 
been at Hinton, and before the construction of their present com- 
modious brick quarters in the upper story of the station, up-town 
rooms were used. At one time the old brick house just above the 
round-house, known as the McClung Building, and the Riffe Build- 



728 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ing, above the old YYickam House, were used for years for offices 
for the company. 

The block system was not established until within the last ten 
years. Accidents were very frequent for the first fifteen years after 
the completion of the road, and litigation in the courts for injuries 
done to the person as well as to property was common. 

When the first telegraph wire was placed through the county 
it was difficult to keep the connection up by reason of the natives 
cutting the wire and using it for domestic uses around the farm ; 
especially was this true in the Laurel Creek neighborhood. The 
excavation for the round-house was made by Alexander Atkinson. 
The employees for several years after the completion of the road 
were principally Virginians. The labor used in its construction 
was mostly colored labor from Virginia. The material for the 
construction was all brought overland in wagons or down Green- 
brier River in bateaux. The people all over the country subscribed 
to a fund for making a channel down Greenbrier River for trans- 
portation purposes. The people on Lick Creek, we remember, 
united in this enterprise, which benefited the railroad company 
principally. 

J. H. Gunther was the first depot agent at Hinton and also 
agent for the Central Land Co.. which positions he retained for a 
number of years. He was a very enterprising man. and did much 
for the upbuilding of the town. He finally got to speculating, 
broke up financially and left for parts not known. 

The agents here have been J. H. Gunther, A. G. Flannagan. 
L. M. Peck, Coleman Alderson, present. Roger Young, T. Hugh 
IMiller and Covertson. 

TALCOTT. 

Talcott as a town or village was unknown to fame or to 
the maps of the country until the construction of the Chesapeake 
& Ohio Railroad. It is situated above Hungard's Creek, at its 
mouth, and at the east portal of the Big Bend Tunnel. The vil- 
lage and station were named after Captain Talcott. a civil engi- 
neer, who aided in locating the railroad at that point. At the time 
of the formation of the county the postoffice was on the opposite 
side of the Greenbrier River, and known as Rollynsburg. After 
whom that postoffice was named I am unable to ascertain, unless 
it be after C. K. Rollyson, who was a well-known citizen of that 
neighborhood in his day. J. W. Jones and YY. AY. Tones, two 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



729 



brothers, were then engaged in merchandising on that side of the 
river known as Rollynsburg, under the firm name of J. W. Jones 
& Brother. After the building of the railroad they moved across 
the river into the storeroom still occupied by W. W. Jones, con- 
tinuously from that day to this. After the removal, J. W. Jones 
accidentally shot and killed himself instantly, leaving a widow, a 
daughter of Dr. Bray and sister of A. B. C. Bray, of Ronceverte, 
and cashier of the First National Bank of that place. 

The village has in the last two years received some impetus 
by reason of the building of the bridge across the river, it being 
made the shipping point for Red Sulphur Springs and Barger 
Springs. A new hotel is now under construction by Messrs. John 
W. Willy and George B. Dunn, two merchants of that place. It 
has been the shipping point for a large quantity of timber, tan- 
bark and railway cross-ties, for the last thirty odd years, brought 
in from Hungard's Creek, Boone Creek and other directions. The 
late M. A. Manning was one of the first settlers in the town, and 
made i't his home for the last thirty years of his life, and always 
took great interest in its progress. There are now four stores in 
the place — W. W. Jones, J. W. Hoke, W. D. Rhodes and Dunn 
& Willy. It has two churches, an M. E. Church South and a 
Missionary Baptist. It has a good frame free school house. 



THE GREAT FLOOD. 

On September 18, 1878, occurred the greatest and most de- 
structive flood ever known in this region. The only one coming 
near to it was that of 1861, which nearly equalled, if not exceeded 
it. New River was 22^ feet high — six feet higher than known of 
before, as then claimed. Rude desolation marked the course of 
the angry waters the entire length of the New River V alley. Fif- 
teen dwellings, a steamboat, fine stables, and one very large saw- 
mill, the first erected in the county, that of John P. Mills, at the 
point of the island near the water plant, were swept away and 
destroyed. Rain continued to fall for twenty-four hours. The 
rainfall as shown by the Government gauge was 3y 2 inches in the 
twenty-four hours — one-half inch greater than ever before reached 
or known. Bluestone came first as never before. The waters rose 
into the residence of Charles Clark, at the mouth of Bluestone, 
where John W. Barker now lives ; carried off James & Sons' boom, 
and 1,500 saw logs, besides a large lot of lumber. Property melted 



730 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



like frost before the summer sun. The new steamboat "Cecelia," 
being in course of construction, was torn loose from its cables and 
went to the ocean. The waters were at their highest on Friday. 
All families deserted the island, leaving their worldly belongings, 
except Silas Hinton and J. P. Mills, but they raised a cry for help, 
and James Johnson (colored), now nearly ninety years old, and 
his brave crew, carried them out over the raging flood. The en- 
tire island disappeared except 100 feet square, near where Dr. 
Gooch resided, and where McDonald built the first brick kiln to 
construct the court house. All the horses, cattle, calves and hogs 
gathered on this square and began making piteous appeals for 
succor; the horses neighed, and the cows lowed most pleadingly, 
until relief came and they were carried off. Each time Johnson 
and his crew attempted to get to the residences of Hinton and 
Mills they were swept away, until finally joined by Tim Over- 
shiner, Wm. H. Thompson and Wm. R. Thompson, who was one 
of the most brave and active in the work of rescue, jumped in a 
skiff and undertook to cross, but Johnson got there first, and they 
together released the humans as well as the beasts from their danger 
and their captivity. 

New River ran from mountain to mountain. Haystacks, corn 
and fencing were carried away in the mad rush. Seven horses, 
two calves and a number of hogs were rescued by the boatmen. 
The river continued to rise until ten o'clock Saturday night. Joe 
Carter lost two dwellings and 600 panel of fence. W. H. Cottle 
lost his residence and all household goods. Widow Day lost all 
her personal effects. E. A. Weeks lost his dwelling; B. L. Hoge 
his dwelling and household effects ; Anna Hoge all her personal 
goods; Walker Tyler his building, storehouse and residence. The 
John Pack storehouse was swept away, the upper story of which 
had been used as a court house for some time after the formation 
of the county, and its removal from the old church. C. Harris and 
F. M. Starbuck lost all their property; Captain Taliaferro had his 
house damaged to the extent of $1,200 and household goods de- 
stroyed. The Sperry House, then owned by the James Sons' Co., 
was also damaged. The William James Sons' Co. lost $5,000 by 
loss of boats, logs, boom, etc., and Silas Hinton's kitchen drifted 
away and lodged against Captain Dennis' residence. The water 
was five feet deep in his house and in the storehouse of Silas Hin- 
ton & Bro. J. H. Hobbs lost one building. M. V. Calloway lost 
his residence, all of the outbuildings and all of his household and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 731 



personal property. B. Prince, Geo. S. Young, John AW Woodson, 
J. S. Thompson, J. P. Mills and S. E. Phillips & Bro. each lost 
very considerable. The handsome frame residence and large steam 
mill of J. P. Mills were destroyed and damaged to the extent of 
$5,000. N. M. Lowery, B. P. Gooch, Sam Pack, the Rev. Harry 
Coe, the Widow Rice, Rev. M. Bibb, John R. Gott, M. Thompson, 
Jas. Collins and others lost very considerable. The populous part 
of the city was on the island in Avis, and especially fronting New 
River. This river front was practically all carried away except 
a part of the house of S. Hinton and the house of Frank Dennis. 
The whole island was left desolate. A dyke was begun by the mu- 
nicipality of Avis in 1906, with a view to turning the floods and 
waters from the river as a protection for all time. This work has 
progressed very satisfactorily to this date — January, 1907. 

W. C. Richmond, who owned the fine farm just below Hin- 
ton, on the opposite side, had his large farm house completely de- 
molished. Colonel Crockett lost four stacks of hay and 2,500 
bushels of corn from Crump's Bottom, and 1,000 rails and a valu- 
able portion of land along the river margin. Elbert Fowler lost 
twenty-five stacks of hay, six acres of corn, with damages amount- 
ing to $1,000, including injury to land. M. C. Barker lost seven- 
teen stacks of hay, a large number of rails, and fifty acres of corn. 
Rufus Pack lost five stacks of hay and six acres of corn and fenc- 
ing. A mill was washed off from Crump's Bottom, and on Lick 
Creek, in Green Sulphur District, the valuable grist mill of Har- 
rison Gwinn was swept away, the mill stones carried a great dis- 
tance, and the dam across the creek completely destroyed. The 
water was several feet up on the storehouse at Xew Richmond, 
now owned by J. A. Graham, then owned by Mrs. Culliny. Great 
damages were done to the railway, and all trains and traffic were 
completely at a standstill, and so continued until the following 
Sunday. Vincent Sweeney, an aged citizen, living on New River 
at this time, remembered a flood in 1840, when he claimed the 
river was higher by six feet than at this time, judging from a 
mark he made at the time. 

The losses by the farmers along the rivers were very serious. 
John A. Richmond, at Xew Richmond, lost 180 shocks of corn ; 
J. X. Haynes, at Pack's Ferry, lost 100 shocks; James Roles, at 
the mouth of Bluestone, on the Jonathan Lee Barker farm, lost 
100 shocks ; C. A. Fredeking lost 230 fine walnut logs from James' 
boom. 



732 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



A FATAL ACCIDENT. 

The month of March, 1907, was one of the dreariest ever ex- 
perienced by residents of the county. It rained almost continually 
for the greater part of the month, resulting in a great deal of mud 
and slides constantly on the C. & O. Road. Furious thunder 
storms occurred, accompanied by bright lightning, illuminating the 
dark nights. 

John Flanagan, a locomotive engineer, who was one of the old- 
est residents of Hinton, and who had for twenty-five years been 
one of the most faithful passenger engineers of the road, having 
taken the "Fast Flying Virginian" when it was first placed on the 
road fifteen years before and ran it without a mishap or killing a 
man, passenger or employe, having a most enviable record, with 
his fireman, Michael Quinn, a son of the old boatman, Captain 
Thomas J. Quinn, were running No. 3, the west-bound passenger, 
"F. F. V.," on the morning of March 12th, and when running near 
the trestle and embankment between Wiggins and the Little Bend 
Tunnel at Pauley's Creek, ran into a small slide of slate which 
had fallen from the upper embankment. The engine was thrown 
from its trucks across the tracks, blocking them. The baggage 
car was thrown across the tracks, projecting half way over a fifty- 
foot perpendicular embankment, as was also the combination car, 
the remainder of the train- practically remaining on the ties and 
rails. The engine and tender, which was of steel, were completely 
wrecked, as well as the baggage car. The rails for some one hun- 
dred feet were twisted, warped and destroyed, the wheels of the 
cars sinking and cutting through the ties into the earth. Mr. 
Flanagan and his fireman were both caught beneath the engine, 
from which the hot steam escaped in great quantities, resulting 
in the scalding and burning of them to such an extent that they 
died within a very short time after being rescued from the debris, 
which was done within thirty minutes after the catastrophe. No 
passenger was seriously hurt, the baggageman being slightly in- 
jured. 

Mr. Flanagan was about fifty-eight years of age, in the best of 
health, and was buried at "Hill Top" Cemetery on the 14th. In 
such high esteem was he held that the entire business of the city 
was suspended, the business houses closed, the railroad company 
practically stopping operation from 12 until 4 o'clock on the day 
of the funeral. 

The funeral was participated in by the great body of our citi- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



733 



zens, and by the fraternal orders of which he was a member — the 
Masons, the Elks and the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. 
He left a family of three children — Dr. T. O. Flanagan, Mrs. E. 
N. Faulconer and a widow. 

. He was held in universal esteem, and his death and the sud- 
denness and manner of his taking off cast a gloom over the entire 
community. 

The remains of young Quinn, who was twenty-five years of 
age, were interred at the family burying-ground at Farley, on the 
14th, by his brotherhood. He was a young man of character, and 
his death was regretted by the people generally. 

About the same time Captain John B. Lutz, a conductor, was 
killed in his caboose at Sewall Creek by an engine running into it. 
He was also buried on the 14th. He was a popular and good citi- 
zen, and left a widow and seven small children. 

CATASTROPHE AT PARKER'S OPERA HOUSE. 

On the 4th of July, in the year 1895,, one of the greatest cele- 
brations of that great holiday was in progress. The city was full 
of people from the country districts, and from up and down the 
railroad the whole town was in gala attire ; flags floating from the 
buildings and decorations throughout the town ; the people happy, 
and having a day of happiness and enjoyment. A street parade 
had taken place, and comic demonstrations carried out according 
to program. A ball was billed for the afternoon at the Parker 
House. The building was crowded to its full capacity with men, 
women and children, which was not sufficient to permit all the 
people desiring admittance to enter to observe or take part in the 
festivities. Along the front of the building facing Summers Street 
was a temporary balcony or covering for the purpose of providing 
shade for the walk and store-rooms on the ground floor, A num- 
ber of people had gone up into the Opera House, and gone out 
onto the balcony through the windows to observe and enjoy the 
festivities within. The walks were crowded with people going 
to and fro, passing and repassing, and enjoying the occasion, 
when suddenly this wooden-constructed balcony gave way from 
the top, the fastenings parting from the walls, precipitating the 
crowd on top of the balcony, as well as the timbers on which it 
was constructed at the windows onto the people below. Imme- 
diately great confusion reigned. The people fled from the Opera 
House exit pell-mell, and it was soon circulated throughout the 



734 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

town that a tragedy had occurred. One man, Parker Bennet, 
leaped on his white horse and rode through town at a gallop, 
"hollering" to the extent of his powerful lungs and voice "that 
the Opera House had fell and the people were all massacred." 
There was one boy killed (Mann), being eleven years of age, who 
was the son of Thomas Mann, who lived in Upper Hinton ; Louise 
Fletcher, who had her ankle broken at the joint; Henry Lee Lilly 
received slight bodily injuries, and several others were injured 
more or less seriously. 

This accident resulted in long and hotly contested litigation. 
Mr. Mann sued the town of Hinton for damages by reason of the 
killing of his son, and received a judgment for $1,000; Louise 
Fletcher sued Colonel J. A. Parker and Dr. S. P. Peck, the then 
owners of the Opera House, for damages, for which she received 
a verdict before the jury of $700, which was taken to the Supreme 
Court of Appeals of the State, compromised and dismissed ; but 
afterwards, by what was claimed without authority of the benefi- 
ciary, a suit was instituted by the attorneys interested, and the 
compromise and judgment secured held not good, and judgment 
held valid, which was released by Miss Fletcher as to her interest; 
but the attorneys are still contesting the matter, claiming an at- 
torney's lien against the judgment, although they had received a 
part of the funds paid in settlement and compromised. This liti- 
gation has once been taken to the Supreme Court and reversed* in 
Colonel Parker's favor, and is now pending in the circuit court. 
Mr. Lilly dismissed his suit, and all other matters were adjusted. 
The city was later required to pay the Mann judgment of $1,000. 

THE HINTON TOLL BRIDGE. 

This structure, one of the most important to the city of Hin- 
ton, was largely promoted by Dr. Joseph A. Fox, to whom the 
credit of the promotion of the enterprise is due. A joint stock 
company was organized in 1904, and the charter issued. The com- 
pany elected a Board of Directors, composed of Dr. Fox as general 
manager; Dr. O. O. Cooper, vice-president, and William Plumley, 
president. The total cost of the bridge and land was $44,400. 

A contract was entered into on the 8th day of October, 1904, 
with the West Virginia Bridge & Construction Company, by which 
it agreed to construct this bridge for the price of $41,000, the 
bridge to be completed by the 1st of October, 1905. The work 
was begun about the 1st of March, 1905, and completed on the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY > WEST VIRGINIA. 



735 



22d day of August, 1906, when it was opened to the public as a 
public highway, charging five cents for foot passengers one way, 
and ten cents for horse and rider. 

The great delay in the completion of the structure resulted in 
a notorious lawsuit by the Toll Bridge Company vs. the Construc- 
tion Company for damages, tried on the 20th day of March, 1907. 
The jury gave its verdict for the plaintiff for the sum of $900, and 
notice of an appeal given to be applied for. The attorney for the 
plaintiff was R. F. Dunlap, and for the defendant Beckner, Clay 
and George E. Price, of Charleston. 

The piers and abutments are of concrete, the second of the kind 
in the county, the Talcott bridge being the first. 

HINTON WATER WORKS. 

About the year 1890 a number of the citizens of Hinton, appre- 
ciating the necessity and advantages to be derived to the town, 
got together, in a general mass-meeting held for the purpose, and 
took steps towards organizing a water works enterprise. The 
leading promoters of the enterprise were J. C. James H. Ewart, 
R. R. Flanagan, A. G. Flanagan, S. P. Peck, W. J. Brightwell, J. A. 
Fiffe, James H. Miller and C. B. Alahon. They proceeded to or- 
ganize the Hinton Water Works Company, securing a charter 
therefore. A franchise for ninety-nine years was secured from the 
city council, with the usual reservations, regulations and provisions. 
A reservoir was made near the graveyard on the top of the hill, 

which would hold gallons of water. The pump-house was 

located near the river in Avis. The company was capitalized at 
$20,000, but the plant cost about $30,000. It was a large under- 
taking and enterprise for the then financial condition of the people 
of this city. It was many years before the promoters began to 
realize anything from their investment. Later, the plant w r as sold 
to O. M. Lance and associates, of Wilkesbarre, Pa., who also pur- 
chased at the same time the electric light plant, and operated the 
same together for some five years, but were unable to declare a 
dividend on their stock, whereupon the same was resold to the 
citizens of Hinton at about $100,000. The price paid ' for the 
plant by the Pennsylvania syndicate was $75,000. The electric 
light plant was not originally a part of the water works operations, 
but was a distinct and separate corporation, and was placed in the 
city, franchise secured and operated by Dr. S. P. Peck and F. M. 
Starbuck without incorporation. Later, they sold the plant to 



736 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY^ WEST VIRGINIA. 



John Leslie and associates, who operated it for a number of years, 
and sold it to the Pennsylvania people. Since the consolidation and 
repurchase by the present owners, who are all citizens of Hinton, 
and include among their stockholders Messrs. H. Ewart, R. R. 
Flanagan, J. H. Jordan, A. E. Miller, O. O. Cooper, A. G. Flanagan, 
C. B. Mahon, J. C. James, Wm. Plumley, Jr., J. A. Fox, T. N. Read, 
W. H. Warren, P. K. Litsinger, J. A. Parker, W. J. Brightwell, 
J. J. Duffy, James T. McCreery and John W. McCreery. The pres- 
ent company owns both the lighting and water systems, and are 
installing an entirely new, up-to-date and modern electric lighting 
plant and water system for the entire two cities of Hinton and 
Avis, placing new power-house, new steam pumps, and making an 
up-to-date plant throughout. 

Much unnecessary and unfair antagonism has been shown to- 
wards these enterprises for the last few years, and much misrepre- 
sentation and adverse criticism, by reason of the character of the 
service, however, not by the people who are looking to the best 
interests of the town. Grounds for these criticisms and complaints 
have arisen from the character of the water and light service, and 
these have grown largely from the operations conducted and main- 
tained on the property while owned by foreign capitalists, and not 
when under the management and operation of the home people. 
This, like all the other industries and enterprises of these cities, 
is owned by residents and home capitalists. 

TALCOTT TOLL BRIDGE. 

This is a steel bridge spanning the Greenbrier River at Talcott 
Station, and is owned by the Talcott Toll Bridge Company, a West 
Virginia corporation, of which Nathaniel Bacon, a direct descend- 
ant of the Virginia patriot of that name, celebrated in prose and 
poetry as well as in history as the hero of "Bacon's Rebellion," and 
the hero in the famous novel, "Hansford," is president, and J. A. 
Fox, of Hinton, general manager and the largest individual stock- 
holder. The bridge was contracted for and the construction be- 
gun in 1904, and completed in 1905. The piers are concrete and 
the superstructure iron, and it is the first and only steel bridge 
across Greenbrier River in the county. It is 400 feet long, and 
occupies the site of the old Rollynsburg Ferry, later Talcott Ferry, 
of which Thomas C. Maddy, the old Confederate soldier, was for 
many years the owner and ferryman. The bridge company pur- 
chased the old ferry and employed Mr. Maddy as bridge-keeper, 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



737 



and he has been the first and only one. He is noted for his hon- 
esty and courtesy in all the region. When this bridge was com- 
pleted it diverted a great deal of the travel from Lowell, including 
the Red Sulphur mail line and travel. A bridge, toll and free, had 
been agitated by the citizens for many a year, and a vote was taken 
at one time on bonding the district, but voted down. Hon. M. A. 
Manning had endeavored for years to secure a bridge, but it did 
not come until late years, and he did not live to see his hopes con- 
summated. The principal promoters were Messrs. Dr. Ford, W. 
W. Jones, N. Bacon, E. P. Huston, G. B. Dunn and Dr. Fox, who 
first undertook the promotion of the enterprise. It cost about 
$12,000, and was a paying investment from the time it was first 
thrown open to the public. 

FOSS BRIDGE. 

The first iron bridge ever built across Greenbrier River was 
built near its mouth by the Foss Bridge Company, a corporation 
chartered by the Secretary of State of West Virginia on the 26th 
day of July, 1906, by G. L. Lilly, G. A. Miller, A. E. Miller, H. 
Ewart and Jas. H. Miller. The bridge was completed the first of 
December, 1907, and was built and is owned practically by A. E. 
& C. L. Miller, H. Ewart, John P. and Richard McNeer. It is 
about four hundred feet in length, with four piers. The ferry at 
this point was discontinued in November, 1907, at the opening of 
this bridge. The bridge was constructed by the Columbus Bridge 
& Iron Company. It consists of four sections, with piers and abut- 
ments of concrete. 

THE FREE LANCE. 

There being factions in the Democratic party after the 
election of Grover Cleveland for the second time in 1892, 
those opposed to the policies of the "Independent Herald," includ- 
ing E. H. Peck, Hon. Wm. R. Thompson, Hon. Frank Lively and 
others, encouraged J. B. Henderson, an ambulatory newspaper 
man, and George C. Mcintosh, later the distinguished editor of 
the "Charleston Mail" and "Fayette Journal," to found a new paper 
in Hinton, which was done in 1892, and christened the "Free 
Lance." It was launched as a factional Democratic paper by the 
firm of Henderson & Mcintosh, publishers, but was owned by a 
joint stock company, incorporated as The Free Lance Publishing 



738 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Company. It ran along for two or three years, became involved 
in debt, and was sold under a trust deed by James H. Miller, trustee, 
who caused it to be removed beyond the territory of the county, 
and the same plant is now publishing the "Greenbrier Valley Demo- 
crat" at Ronceverte, by the veteran newspaper man and editor, 
Howard Templeton, Captain C. T. Smith being the founder of the 
enterprise. 

The career of the "Free Lance," as is usual with an enterprise 
of this character, was short, turbulent and inglorious. Air. Mcin- 
tosh, being a Republican, was like a fish out of water running a 
Democratic journal. He retired to Fayette and founded the "Fay- 
ette Journal," of which he is still editor and manager, being one 
of the most versatile and able writers of the Republican party in 
West Virginia. The "Free Lance" was an enterprising paper, but 
its patronage was not of a character to warrant its continuance, 
and its abettors were glad to see it perish from the earth. 

STENOGRAPHERS. 

We have been aided in the preparation of this work by Miss 
Mary Miller, a daughter of James William Miller, a son of Irvin B. 
and a grandson of John Miller, Sr., the settler, she being now a 
proficient stenographer, located at Hinton ; by Mrs. George A. 
Miller, who was the granddaughter of Augustus Gwinn, and 
daughter of Mr. Clark Gwinn, of Alderson ; and by Ben. D. Keller, 
a son of R. A. Keller, cashier of the Citizens' National Bank of 
Pineville, Wyoming' County, and a direct descendant of Conrad 
Keller, the first settler at Lowell, he being now located at Hinton, 
engaged as court stenographer ; and by Miss Margaret McNeer, a 
great-granddaughter of John Duncan, Sr., and a granddaughter of 
William B. McNeer and Margaret, . his wife, now engaged as 
stenographer with the New River Grocery Company, all descend- 
ants of the ancient pioneers of this region. 

PENCE SPRING. 

This celebrated resort for pleasure and health is twelve miles 
east of Hinton, on the Greenbrier Bottoms, and is now owned by 
Andrew P. Pence, a native of Monroe County, and a member of 
the honorable family located now in that county. 

The land consists of a tract of two hundred and eighty-three 
acres, purchased by Mr. Pence from the heirs of Jessie Beard. 



FOSS BRIDGE, 
Built by Charles Louis Miller, 1907. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 739 



The land had been originally patented by William Kincaide, and 
later by Jesse Beard, the father of Mrs. George Keller, Mrs. Sa- 
rah Hines and Mrs. Caleb Johnson and Thomas Beard. When 
settled by Kincaide, the buffaloes regularly slaked their thirst, and 
traces of the old buffalo paths leading over Keeney's Knob to 
Lick Creek, no doubt leading to where Green Sulphur Springs are 
now, may yet be seen. Kincaide later moved on West. 

Mr. Pence, some years after his purchase, sold a one-third un- 
divided interest in the place to Judge Homer A. Holt, and another 
third to Colonel James W. Davis, who had great faith in the fu- 
ture of the Spring, and they aided Mr. Pence in exploiting its 
virtues. Later, after the death of Judge Holt, Colonel Davis pur- 
chased his interest, and after his death Mr. Pence bought from 
his son, Mr. George N. Davis, of Greenbrier, the two-thirds ac- 
quired by his father, and which descended to him. Mr. Pence 
spent many years in introducing the water and bringing its cura- 
tive properties to the attention of the public. He erected addi- 
tions to the buildings for the accommodation of guests which 
were burned some fifteen years ago; but not becoming discour- 
aged, and having the utmost confidence in the place, he began over 
again, constructed a new and commodious hotel, adding to and 
enlarging the same from year to year, and still at this time he is 
entirely unable to accommodate and supply the demands of the 
public, and has to turn guests away. 

The farm was bought thirty years ago by Andrew P. Pence, 
from the heirs of Jesse Beard. He began soon after its purchase 
to exploit the sulphur spring as a resort for persons afflicted with 
kidney, liver, dyspepsia and other afflictions, and by great persist- 
ence and energy he brought it up to one of the famous places in 
the State. Its curative properties have a wide repute throughout 
the L^nion. 

Analysis of Pence Springs, Made by Colonel M. B. Hardin, of 
Virginia Military Institute. 

Grains per U. S. gallon of 231 cubic inches: 



Sodium Carbonate 14.568 

Calcium Carbonate 1.312 

Magnesium Carbonate 1.622 

Strontium Carbonate 0.292 

Lithium Carbonate 0.058 

Ammonium Carbonate 0.009 



740 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA, 



Ferrous Carbonate traces 

Potassium Sulphate 0.052 

Sodium Sulphate 0.682 

Sodium Sulphide 0.426 

Sodium Thiosulphate 0.402 

Sodium Chloride 2.035 

Sodium Iodide 0.002 

Sodium Phosphate traces 

Borax 0.169 

Alumina 0.407 

Silicia 0.554 



22.230 

Carbon dioxide combined with carbonates to form 

bi-carbonates 7.610 



29.840 

Milligrams Grains 

per litre. per gal. 

Ammonia . . .016 .0009 

Albumenoid Ammonia 026 .0030 

Cubic inches of the gases per gallon : 

Sulphuretted Hydrogen 0.15 

Carbonic Acid 0.18 

Nitrogen 4.09 

Oxygen ... .0.17 

Reduced to 60 deg. F. and 30 in pressure. 



In recent years E. M. Carney, of Kanawha, purchased above 
Air. Pence a tract of twenty-two acres of land, and began boring 
wells, of which he has completed three by this time, seeking for 
the famous sulphur water, and finally finding it. and which for the 
past few years he has been pumping in large quantities. He also 
erected a large hotel — "The Valley Heights Hotel" — and enter- 
tains a large number of guests, who come by reason of this sul- 
phur water. 

The operations of Air. Carney have resulted in two noted law- 
suits — one in 1904, of Pence versus Carney, to enjoin the pumping 
and waste of the water. This suit was decided by Circuit Court 
Judge McW norter adversely to Air. Pence, who appealed to the 
Supreme Court of the State, where he reversed the lower court. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



741 



but practically deciding that Carney had the right to pump the 
water in a reasonable way for beneficial purposes, but not for 
non-beneficial purposes or to waste it. 

Later, in 1907, Mr. Pence again sued out an injunction to stop 
what he claimed was a non-beneficial and waste of the water, 
which he contends has been done to his injury. This case has 
not yet been decided. 

It seems that when Carney pumps, the natural flow at Pence's 
ceases, and it then becomes necessary for him to place a pump 
and draw the water by powerful steam pumps. When Carney 
stops pumping for a few days, the water rises in Pence's Spring 
and flows as of old. As matters now stand, both parties are se- 
curing water by pumps, and neither has a natural flow. Mr. Pence 
does a large and profitable business in the bottling and shipping 
of the water, averaging some two hundred crates per week, at 
two dollars per crate, from which he has a profitable industry. 

GREENBRIER SPRINGS. 

This property was, from the first history we are able to give of 
it, the property of Isaac Garden, and was a resort for hunters and 
trappers before the war, and for their accommodation a row of 
double log cabins was built, with chimneys between. A large 
double hewed log house was erected, and this was enlarged by the 
addition of a frame dining-room. This house is still standing, and 
was inhabited by the first ancient settlers. Isaac Carden had a 
store at this place many years ago, and his goods came by canal 
from Richmond to Buchanan, and from there by wagon — some one 
hundred miles or more. This was one of the ancient stores of 
the county, and the house stood in front of the spring across the 
branch, and all sign of it has vanished. The title to the property 
passed to William H. Barger, who married a Carden, and his wife 
inherited one interest and he purchased others. He left a will, by 
which he devised the plantation, including the spring, to his son, 
Wilbur A. Barger. The spring was not kept up or exploited as 
a resort, having fallen into disuse during the war. The buildings 
went down, and the Bargers only occupied the land as a farm for 
some forty years, the spring being covered with a rough, rugged, 
crude covering. In 1903 a party of thirty gentlemen of Hinton 
formed a company, on the recommendation of T. N. Read, an at- 
torney of Hinton, who had for several summers visited the place 
and camped and fished in the river. The object of the company 



742 



HISTORY OF 



SUMMERS 



COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



was to acquire the place and build summer homes for themselves 
and families. They in 1904 built a new covering for the spring, 
a neat structure covered with tin, circular in shape, with concrete 
columns supporting the same, and the owners of the lots built 
eight cottages— Messrs. H. Ewart, J. H. Jordan, C. A. Alvis, E. 
W. Taylor, W. J. Brightwell. T. N. Read and Dr. W. L. Barks- 
dale and James H. Miller. 

The company first organized by electing H. Ewart, C. B. Ma- 
hon, R. R. Flanagan, Geo. O. Cuesenberry and Jas. H. Miller as a 
Board of Directors, who elected Jas. H. Miller, president; C. B. 
Mahon, vice-president ; H. Ewart, Secretary and treasurer, and E. 
L. Dunn, general manager. They had Andrew L. Campbell, sur- 
veyor, to plat the property, lay off a number of lots, including 
thirty for the stockholders, each of the stockholders having one 
lot deeded to himself, the lot to be taken being drawn by lot. In 
1905 the present new hotel was built near the old log house, which 
is over 100 years old, the chimney being one of the curiosities of 
- the place. Water works were constructed in 1906, by which the 
property is provided from the Greenbrier River by a steam pump, 
a reservoir being constructed on the graveyard hill, and the place 
thrown open to the public and guests invited, and quite a prosper- 
ous season ensued. Mr. Dunn remaining manager for two years. 

In 1906, June 1st, the property was leased to Messrs. Keatley 
and Bolton for three years, and it is becoming a popular place as 
a summer resort. The cottage and store house were built in 1906. 
The company added to the property by purchasing three additional 
tracts, including Stony Creek Gorge, the famous "Turn Hole," and 
two islands" in the river, the property now consisting of 315 acres 
of valuable land on Greenbrier River back of Big Bend Tunnel 
Mountain, three miles from Talcott Station. There are high cliffs, 
deep waters and a curious cave on the property. The natural 
location and scenery are unsurpassed in all the region. 

In 1906 A. E. Miller, R. R. Flanagan, A. G. Flanagan and Rev. 
A. Lee Barrett and E. L. Dunn built their cottages. 

Many years there was in this region of country a famous horse- 
thief by the name of Jim Fisher, who on one occasion stole a horse 
in the country west of the spring. The people as usual in those 
days formed a posse and went in pursuit. As of old, they followed 
the Indians. When they came to the mouth of Stony Creek they 
were in hot pursuit and they thought there was no chance for the 
escape of the horse-thief ; but he was familiar with the- geography 
of the section, and at the mouth of the gorge he sprang from the 



BARGER'S SPRINGS 
As It Was in 1903, and the Board who Improved 
and Bought it. Beginning- at Left: 

Ewart, . Flannagan, Mahon, Dunn, Miller. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 743 



stolen horse, ran up the point, climbed a large pine tree which 
stood at the end of the cliff and by its side, and at the top passed 
from the tree to the top of the cliff and escaped into the wilder- 
ness beyond. The pursuers were fearless men, but they would not 
undertake to scale the tree and cliff. They recovered the horse, 
but the thief escaped. This tree still stands as it did when this 
incident occured sixty years ago, and it would take courage and 
a clear head to perform this feat. Fisher was many years after, 
when Elbert Fowler was prosecuting attorney, prosecuted by him 
and sent to the penitentiary for forgery from the county, where 
he died, being shot by a guard while trying to make his escape 
from the pen. The incident of the escape of this thief was detailed 
to the writer by John Sims, a farmer who lived on the opposite 
side of the river, and who died in 1907, about eighty years of age. 

In 1905 a young man with a party of young people were visit- 
ing at the Springs from Hinton, over Sunday, by the name of Carl 
Fredeking. He and some young ladies and gentlemen went to 
see the scenery at the Stony Creek Gorge, above the bridge, and 
stopped at the fall. This young man fell from the top of this 
rock into the pool below. Assistance and aid came promptly, but 
his body, v hen recovered by dragging the pool, was lifeless, and 
all efforts at resuscitation were futile. 

During the war a party of deserters from the Confederate Army 
from the Ci!es country were making their way to the Union Army 
in the West, and passed down Stony Creek and crossed at the 
"Turn Hole" below the spring. They depended on Isaac Epling 
to aid them in crossing the river and for food. He lived in an old 
house just below the cave. They slept out in the woods to avoid 
detection by the "rebels," with whom the country was "infested" 
and strongly in sympathy. The first night Epling sent a part of 
the crowd of deserters over, but never returned. By some means 
unknown he was drowned in the river. His body was afterwards 
recovered, and one arm from the elbow down was missing, and 
never accounted for. The remaining crowd of deserters slept the 
following night on the top of the cliff overlooking the river and 
Stony Creek, Mrs. Isaac Epling providing them food for the time 
being, and, to enable them to continue their journey, they con- 
structed a rude raft, and the next night after Epling's death they 
made the crossing, landing down by the side of A. L. Campbell's 
farm, and proceeded on across the Confederate lines into the coun- 
try occupied by the Federal forces. The Stony Creek Gorge has 



744 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



in years past been the hiding place for violators of the law, espe- 
cially for the notorious French-Crawford factions. 

These Springs have been known as Carden's Springs, then 
Barger Springs, and renamed by the present owners as the Green- 
brier Springs, the owners being a corporation under the West Vir- 
ginia laws, known as the Greenbrier Springs Company. The wa- 
ter is recommended as a valuable cure for chronic kidney, liver 
and other complaints. 

Analysis of Various Sulphur Waters. 



Mineral Constituent. Grains per U. S. Gallon. 





Greenb'r 


Pence 


Red. 


White 


Cold 


Blue 


Sodium Carbonate .... 




14.57 




3.51 






Calcium Carbonate . . . 


11.53 


1.31 


5.25 


1.17 


1.84 


5.05 


Magnesium Carbonate . 


. 8.16 


1.62 


4.81 




1.71 


.94 


Strontium Carbonate . . 




.29 










Lithium Carbonate 




.06 










Ammonium Carbonate . 




.01 










Ferrous Carbonate . . . . 




trace 






.02 




Potassium Sulphate . . . 




.05 






• • • • \ 




Sodium Sulphate 


15.89 


.68 


4.14 


9.35 


2.46 


16.22 


Calcium Sulphate 


5.71 




.55 


73.19 


2.91 


46.55 


Magnesium Sulphate . . 








19.03 


.29 


6.38 


Sodium Chloride 


1.01 


2.04 




.52 


.12 


4.21 


Calcium Chloride 








.02 






Magnesium Chloride . . 








.16 






Sodium Iodide 




.002 










Iron Oxide 








.15 




.03 


Alumina 


.05 


.05 




.02 


.25 




Sodium Sulphide 




.43 










Sodium Thiosulphate . 




.40 










Sodium Phosphate 




trace 




trace 


trace 








.17 












1.25 


.55 


.82 




1.48 




Organic Matter 


trace 




8.39 


.01 


.32 


6.93 






.0009 










Albumenoid Ammonia. . 




.0030 










Gases. 


Cubic 


Inches Per 


Gallon 






Carbon Dioxide 


18.84 


.18 


5.75 


8.49 




6.35 


Sulphuretted Hydrogen . 


.45 


.15 


.40 


.29 




.10 


Nitrogen 




4.09 


6.92 








Oxygen 




.17 


1.20 









HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 745 



John Crawford was a blacksmith at Barger Springs, now Green- 
brier Springs, many years ago. While hunting on a flat back of 
the springs, between Stony Creek and Greenbrier River, or Blue 
Lick Branch, he found two pairs of very large buckhorns inter- 
locked, so that it would be impossible to separate them without 
sawing them apart, which he did. They were back in the moun- 
tain in the wilderness. The deer had been in a light, and had come 
in contact with such force as to interlock their horns in such a 
manner that it was impossible for them to be separated or to 
separate them themselves, and died in this manner. 

Analysis of Kesler's Cold Sulphur Spring, Made in 1906. 

Per U. S. gallon. 231 cubic inches. 



Ammonia Chloride 174 

Potassium. " 1.827 

Sodium " 5.174 

Magnesium Sulphate 4.924 

Sodium Sulphide 1.073 

Calcium " 4.924 

Calcium Bichloride 16.275 

Sidium 2.952 

Silica 231 



Total 36.950 



This spring was discovered by B. L. Kesler in 1906 by drilling 
into the earth seventy-five feet. He is now shipping the water for 
commercial purposes and introducing it into the markets, and it 
has the reputation of being an excellent curative water. 

Lindeman Springs. 

This is a fine sulphur spring on Little Stony Creek in this dis- 
trict, and is now owned by the Lindeman Estate, of New York 
City. It was purchased some twenty years ago by J. G. Lindeman, 
with sixty acres of land, from Dr. Eber W. Maddy for $2,000. 
No improvements have been made on the property, and it is prac- 
tically laying to the commons. There is sixty acres of land lying 
around the spring, forming the springs property. The water is 
very similar to the Greenbrier Springs water. 



746 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Alum Springs. 

There is a fine, cold alum spring on Elk Knob, on the Clark 
Grimmett place; also another on Beech Run, on the lands of John 
W. and Bent Barker, the waters of which are used for medicinal 
purposes. 

Analysis of Green Sulphur Springs, the Property of Harrison 
Gwinn, Made by Booth, Garrett & Blair, Philadelphia. 

This spring is sixty-five feet deep ; bored in 1819. 

Grains per U. S. Gallon. 



Silica 0.711 

Sulphuric Acid Radicale 9.233 

Bicarbonic " " 15.259 

Carbonic " " 0.583 

Phosphoric " Trace 

Chlorine 8.026 

Iodine 0.012 

Aluminum 0.015 

Calcium 2.671 

Magnesium 0.571 

Potassium 0.076 

Sodium '., ..11.339 

Lithium 0.015 

Ammonium 0.009 

Oxygen to form Al 0.013 



Total : 48.533 



SURVEYORS OF THE COUNTY. 

John Graham, while never surveyor of the county, was sur- 
veyor at one time of Monroe and Greenbrier, or assistant to the 
surveyor, and did all of the duties of that office for a large portion 
of Summers County before the war. He was appointed as the first 
surveyor of the county at its formation. 

The first elected surveyor was Michael Smith, who held for 
twenty years. The second surveyor was John E. Harvey, who 
held two terms, and declined to hold the office any longer. 

The third and present surveyor of the county is Andrew L. 
Campbell, who is serving his third term of four years each. 



BARGER'S SPRINGS 
Transformed Into Greenbrier Springs 1904. Mrs. 
Julia Huddleston and Miss Daisy Miller. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 747 



MEMBERS OF CONGRESS FROM THE DISTRICT OF 
WHICH SUMMERS HAS BEEN A PART. 

K, V. Whaley, Republican, elected 1864, over John M. Phelps, 
Dem.; majority, 1,236. 

Daniel Polsley, Republican, elected 1866, over John H. Oley; 
majority, 1,471. 

John S. Witcher, Republican, elected 1868, over Chas. P. T. 
Moore; majority, 1,409. 

Frank Hereford, Democrat, elected 1870, over John S. Witcher, 
Rep. ; majority, 1,493. 

Frank Hereford, Democrat, elected 1874, over J. B. Walker, by 
8,884 majority. 

Frank Hereford, Democrat, elected 1876, over Benj. T. Red- 
mond, Rep., by 17,573 majority. 

John E. Kenna, Democrat, elected 1878, over Henry S. Walker, 
Greenback, by 2,827 majority. 

John E. Kenna, Democrat, over Henry S. Walker, Greenback, 
1880, by 5,310 majority. 

John E. Kenna, Democrat, over E. L. Buttrick, Republican, 

1882, by 4,465 majority. 

C. P. Snyder, Democrat, over James H. Brown, Republican, 

1883, by 1,230 majority. 

C. P. Snyder, Democrat, over James W. Davis, Republican, 

1884, by 2,119 majority. 

C. P. Snyder over James H. Brown, Republican in 1886, by 815 
majority. 

John D. Alderson, Democrat, over J. H. McGinnis, Republican, 
1888, by 1,293 majority. 

John D. Alderson, Democrat, over Theophilus Gaines, Republi- 
can, 1890, by 5.014 majority. 

John D. Alderson, Democrat, over Edgar P. Rucker, Republi- 
can, 1892, by 1,946 majority. 

James H. Huling, Republican, over John D. Alderson, Demo- 
crat, in 1894, by 4,018 majority. 

Charles P. Dorr, Republican, over E. W. Wilson, Democrat, in 
1896, by 3,631 majority. 

David E. Johnston, Democrat, over William S. Edwards, Re- 
publican, 1898, by 765 majority. 

Joseph H. Gaines, Republican, over David E. Johnston, Demo- 
crat, 1900, by 6,570 majority. 



748 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Joseph H. Gaines, Republican, over Jas. H. Miller, Democrat, 
1902, by about 2,500 majority. 

Joseph H. Gaines, Republican, over Henry B. Davenport, Jr., 
Democrat, 1904. 

Joseph H. Gaines was elected over George Berne, Democrat, 
1906. These results are from 1864 to 1906. 

U. S. SENATORS FROM WEST VIRGINIA SINCE THE FOR- 
MATION OF THE STATE. 

Peter C. VanWinkle, Republican, Parkersburg, December 7, 
1863— March 4, 1869. 

Waitman P. Willey, Republican, Morgantown, December 7, 
1863— March 4, 1871. 

Arthur I. Boreman, Republican, Parkersburg, March 4, 1869 — 
March 4, 1875. 

Henry G. Davis, Democrat, Piedmont, March 4, 1871 — March 
-4, 1883. 

Allen T. Caperton, Democrat, Union, from March 4, 1875, to 
date of his death, July 26, 1876. 

Samuel Price, Democrat, Lewisburg, appointed August 26, 1876 
— December 4, 1876. 

Frank Hereford, Democrat, Union, January 31, 1877 — March 
3, 1881. 

Johnson N. Camden, Democrat, Parkersburg, March 4, 1881 — 
March 3, 1887. 

John E. Kenna, Democrat, Charleston, March 4, 1883 — March 
3, 1895 (died in 1893). 

Charles J. Faulkner, Democrat, Parkersburg, March 3, 1887 — 
March 3, 1893. 

Johnson N. Camden, Democrat, Parkersburg, March 4, 1893 — 
March 3, 1895, filling the unexpired term of John E. Kehna. 

Charles J. Faulkner, Democrat, Parkersburg, March 4, 1893 — 
March 3, 1899. 

Steven B. Elkins, Republican, Elkins, March 4, 1895 — March 
3, 1901. 

Nathan B. Scott, Republican, Wheeling, March 4, 1899 — March 
3, 1905. 

Steven B. Elkins, Republican, Elkins, March 4, 1901 — March 
3, 1907. 

N. B. Scott, Republican, Wheeling. Elected January, 1905, for 
a term of six vears. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 749 



STATE SENATORS FROM THE DISTRICT OF WHICH 
SUMMERS COUNTY IS A PART SINCE ITS 
FORMATION. 

Robert F. Dennis, Lewisburg; John W. Arbuckle, Lewisburg; 
William L. McNeal, Pocahontas; J. W. St. Clair, Fayette; M. Van 
Pelt, Fayette ; W. W. Adams, Summers ; William Haynes, Sum- 
mers; William H. McGinnis, Raleigh; M. F. Matheny, Raleigh; 
Ault. Ballard, Monroe, and N. P. Baker, Mercer. 

COUNTY SUPERINTENDENTS OF SCHOOLS. 

The county superintendents of schools have been : 
John H. Pack, appointed when county was formed and elected one 



term. 

C. L. Ellison 2 terms. 

David G. Lilly 2 terms. 

James H. Miller 1 term. 

Charles A. Clark 1 term. 

J. Morris Parker 1 term. 

Victor V. Austin 1 term. 

Jonathan F. Lilly 1 term. 

Henry F. Kessler 2 terms. 

George W. Lilly 2 terms. 

J. E. Keadle 1 term. 



JAILERS OF THE COUNTY. 

The jailers of the county have been : William Gott, W. R. 
Neeley, Jr., E. B. Neeley and John W. Wiseman. 

DELEGATES TO THE SECESSION CONSTITUTIONAL 
CONVENTION, 1861. 

From Monroe: Allen T. Caperton, John Echols. 
From Mercer County: Napoleon Bonaparte French. 

MEMBER OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL CONVENTION, 

1870. 

William Hayne. 



750 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



SUMMERS COUNTY CORPORATIONS. 

New River Land Company, incorporated 1907; T. H. Lilly, Presi- 
dent. 

Hinton Water, Light & Supply Co., incorporated 1903; W. L. 

Fredeking, President. 
National Bank of Summers, incorporated 1905 ; Jas. T. McCreery, 

President. 

First National Bank of Hinton, incorporated 1900; Azel Ford, 
President. 

Citizens' Bank of Hinton, incorporated 1905 ; W. H. Warren, Presi- 
dent. 

New River Grocery Co., incorporated 1901 ; Geo. A. Miller, Presi- 
dent. 

Hinton Steam Laundry, incorporated 1906 ; T. H. Lilly, President. 
Hinton Hotel Company, incorporated 1905 ; Jas. T. McCreery, 
President. 

Hotel McCreery Company, incorporated 1907; Jas. T. McCreery, 
President. 

Hinton Toll Bridge Company, incorporated 1904; Wm. Plumley, 
Jr., President. 

Hinton Foundry, Machine & Plumbing Co., incorporated 1906; 
Jas. T. McCreery, President. 

Ewart-Miller Company, incorporated 1905 ; Jas. H. Miller, Presi- 
dent. 

Foss Bridge Co., incorporated July 26, 1906; A. E. Miller, Presi- 
dent. 

Greenbrier Springs Co., incorporated August 14, 1903; Jas. H. Mil- 
ler, President. 

"Independent-Herald" Publishing Co., incorporated April 19, 1907; 

P. K. Litsinger, President. 
Franklin Publishing Co., incorporated May 3, 1902 ; Geo. O. Que- 

senberry, President, 
Talcott Toll Bridge Co., incorporated July 13, 1904; J. A. Fox, 

President. 

Big Four Improvement Co., incorporated 1907; S. B. Hamer, Presi- 
dent. 

Hinton Masonic Development Co., incorporated April 27, 1905 ; 
Will L. Fredeking, President. 

Summers Realty Co., incorporated July 11, 1905; H. Ewart, Presi- 
dent. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 751 



Hinton Drug Co., incorporated August 6, 1900; E. N. Falconer, 
President. 

Hinton Department Co., incorporated May 1, 1901 ; Jake A. Riffe, 
President. 

Hinton Hardware Co., incorporated December 26, 1901 ; Jas. H. 
Miller, President. 

Sandstone Planing Mill Co., incorporated 1907; Jas. Gwinn, Presi- 
dent. 

Charlton Curtain Co., incorporated 1906; J. F. Bigony, President. 
Riverview Land Co., incorporated July 2, 1906; O. O. Cooper, 
President. 

Summers Coal & Land Co., incorporated March 27, 1906; M. F. 
Matheny, President. 

Greenbrier Land Co., incorporated 1907 ; . 

Hinton Construction Co., incorporated 1907; H. Lawrence, Presi- 
dent. 

Lilly Lumber Company, incorporated 1906 ; T. H. Lilly, President. 
Indian Mills Supply Co., incorporated 1906; C. A. Baber, President. 
Raleigh Supply & Milling Co., incorporated 1905 ; W. L. Barks- 
dale, President. 

Summers Publishing Co., incorporated 1903 ; E. C. Eagle, Presi- 
dent (which is the publisher of the "Summers Republican" 
newspaper). 

Summers Dairy & Food Co., incorporated 1906; Andrew L. Camp- 
bell, President. 

Elks' Improvement Co., incorporated January 29, 1906; J. Donald 
Humphries, President. 

SHERIFFS. 

The sheriffs of Summers County were, first, Evan Hinton, who 
was appointed and held the office for two years thereunder, then 
elected for four years. The second sheriff was W. S. Lilly, elected 
for four years ; M. V. Calloway, four years ; H. Gwinn, eight years 
(two terms) ; O. T. Kessler, four years ; James H. George, four 
years; H. Ewart, four years; A. J. Keatley, present sheriff, elected 
for a term of four years. All sheriffs of Summers County have 
been Democrats except M. V. Calloway, who was a Republican. 
The deputies under Evan Hinton were Joseph Ellis, W. P. Hin- 
ton and Isaac G. Carden. The deputies under W. S. Lilly were his 
son, Green Lee Lilly, and I. G. Carden. The deputies under M. 
V. Calloway were Sira W. Willey, A. G. Flanagan and E. L. Dunn. 



752 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS 'COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



The deputies under H. Gwinn were Green Lee Lilly, I. G. Carden, 
John W. Wiseman, Levi M. Neeley, Sr., and W. R. Xeeley, Jr. 
The deputies under O. T. Kessler were L. M. Meador and Henry 
F. Kessler. The deputies under James H. George were William 
C. Hedrick. John W. Wiseman and W. R. Xeeley, Jr. The depu- 
ties under H. Ewart were I. G. Carden, W. R. Neeley, Jr., E. E. 
Angel and W. H. Dunbar. The deputy under A. J. Keatley is 
W. P. Bowling. 



MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF DELEGATES. 

Gordan L. Jordan One term, 2 years. 

M. Gwinn One term, 

Xelson M. Lowry One term, 

Capt. A. A. Miller One term, 

Sylvester L T pton One term, 

John W. Johnston One term. 

Dr. B. P. Gooch Two terms, 4 years. 

B. P. Shumate Two terms, 

M. J. Cook One term, 2 years. 

Col. John G. Crockett Two terms, 4 years. 

M. M. Warren One term, 2 years. 

Dr. J. Thompson Hume , ...One term, 

Capt. Frank jVL Gallagher Two terms. 4 years. 

M. J. Cook is the only Republican ever elected to the House 
of Delegates from Summers County. 

Each term of this office was for two years. 



JUDGES. 

The judges of the circuit court who have been in office in the 
county of Summmers are as follows : 

J. M. McWhorter, who served for two years, and was in office 
when the county was formed. He was Republican in politics, and 
succeeded X'athaniel Harrison, who resigned when proceedings to 
impeach him had been instituted. 

The second judge was Homer A. Holt, who was elected and 
served for two terms of sixteen years. He was a Democrat. The 
circuit then included Greenbrier. Summers. Monroe, Braxton, Nich- 
olas, Fayette. Pocahontas and Webster. 

The third judge was Andrew X T elson Campbell, a Democrat, 
who was elected for one term of eight years. He was from Mon- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



753 



roe County. He was nominated for a second term by his party, 
but the district having become strongly Republican, his defeat was 
accomplished, along with all other candidates on the Democratic 
ticket. 

Fourth — The fourth judge was again J. M. McWhorter, who 
was elected as a Republican nominee for one term of eight years. 
He was a candidate for renomination, but was defeated in the con- 
vention. 

Fifth — James H. Miller, serving the present term, which, if 
completed, will be eight years. He was elected as a Democrat in 
a strong Republican circuit. 

After Judge Holt's first term the circuit was Greenbrier, Mon- 
roe, Pocahontas, Fayette and Summers, until 1905, when Judge 
Miller was elected, the circuit had been changed, so that the pres- 
ent circuit includes Summers, Raleigh and Wyoming. 



PROSECUTING ATTORNEYS. 

The first prosecuting attorney was Carlos A. Sperry, who was 
appointed on the formation of the county in 1871, and served for 
two years. 

Second — White G. Ryan, who was the first elected prosecut- 
ing attorney, for one term of four years. 

Third — Elbert Fowler, who was elected for one term of four 
years. 

Fourth — William R. Thompson, who was elected for one term 
of four years. 

Fifth — James H. Miller, who was elected in 1884, and for four 
succeeding terms, holding the office for sixteen years in succession. 

Sixth — Frank Lively, who was elected in 1900, held the office 
for a part of one term (two years), and resigned. 

Seventh — E. C. Eagle, part of one term, appointed by Judge 
McWhorter to fill the unexpired term caused by the resignation 
of Frank Lively. 

Eighth — R. F. Dunlap, now serving his first term. 

Each of the prosecuting attorneys of the county has been a 
Democrat, except Frank Lively and E. C. Eagle. No nominations 
were made in this county until 1892, when James H. Miller was 
nominated over William R. Thompson. Since that time all can- 
didates for that office have been by party nomination. 



754 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



COMMISSIONERS OF THE COUNTY COURT. 

Joseph Hinton, two terms, of 12 years; J. C. McNeer, one term; 
B. P. Shumate, two terms ; J. J. Christian, two terms ; Joseph Lilly, 
one term ; Allen H. Meador, one term ; Harry Haynes, present 
commissioner, one term; W. O. Farley, present commissioner, serv- 
ing his first term ; W. A. Barger, now serving his first term ; 
George W. Hedrick, one term; Win. J. Kirk, one term. 

Each term in this office was for a period of six years, except 
the first commissioners under the new Constitution, providing for 
the election and creation of this office. Those commissioners were 
Joseph Hinton, J. C. McNeer and B. P. Shumate. They were 
elected, but took office for two, four and six years respectively. 
Jos. J. Christian is the only commissioner who held the office for 
twelve years in succession. B. P. Shumate held for eight years, 
J. C. McNeer six, and Joseph Hinton, ten. 

CLERKS OF THE CIRCUIT COURT. 

Allen H. Meador was appointed at the formation of the county, 
and was elected at the first election thereafter, and held for the 
term of six years, and was then succeeded by B. L. Hoge, who 
was elected for three terms in succession of six years each. 

The third clerk of the circuit court is Walter H. Boude, who is 
serving his second term of twelve years, the terms of each of the 
clerks being six years. 

CLERKS OF THE COUNTY COURT. 

The first clerk of the county court was Josephus Pack, a Demo- 
crat, appointed by Judge McWhorter on the formation of the 
county. He was appointed through the influence of G. C. Land- 
craft. Mr. Pack was born February 2, 1831; died June 1, 1873, 
during his term of office, being elected at the first election after the 
formation of the county. He was a brave soldier in the Confeder- 
ate Army, first with Captain John Swan, of the Kanawha Rifle- 
men, and afterwards a member of Edgar's Battalion. He was suc- 
ceeded by E. H. Peck, who held for twenty-four years; was then 
defeated for the nomination by the Democratic convention, where- 
upon he changed his political affiliations, and is now a strenuous 
and ardent Republican. 

The third clerk was James M. Ayres, who held for one term 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



755 



of six years, and was defeated for renomination by Joseph M. 
Meador, his deputy. 

The fourth clerk of the county court was Joseph M. Meador, 
commonly known as "Little Joe," who is now serving his first 
term of six years, with John M. Carden as his deputy. 

ASSESSORS. 

John Lilly, commonly known as "Item John," held the office 
for two terms — eight years ; W. C. Dobbins, two terms of eight 
years ; W. H. Boude, two terms of eight years. 

Mr. Dobbins., when he was elected, defeated Mr. Boude. Mr. 
Boude was again a candidate, elected, and held the office for eight 
years. The first elected assessor of the county was Wellington 
Cox, who was appointed at ■ the formation of the county, and 
elected at the first election thereafter; E. D. Ferrell, one term. 
J. H. Maddy was elected and held the office four years, with John 
W. Harvey, of Jumping Branch, as his deputy. Mr. Maddy was 
from Talcott District, and a son-in-law of William C. Hedrick. 
L. M. Neely, Jr., is the present assessor, with George W. Hedrick, 
of Talcott District, as his deputy. 

Each assessor of the county has been a Democrat, except Mr. 
Dobbins, who was a minister of the Primitive Baptist Church, and 
elected as an independent in politics, but has since identified him- 
self with the Republican organization, being its nominee at one 
time for the Legislature. 

CORONERS. 

Summers County has never had but two coroners — L. M. Dunn 
and C. A. Fredeking — who were appointed by the county court. 

JUSTICES OF THE COUNTY. 

Jumping Branch District. — John W. Harvey; Matthew C. Hed- 
rick; A. J. Cochran; A. L. Cole; J. E. C. L. Hatcher; Lewis A. 
Meador; Wm. A. Dodd ; Thomas E. Ball; Joseph A. Parker; Jo- 
seph Lilly ("Curly Joe") ; John H. Lilly ("Buckwheat John") ; 
W. R. Neeley, Jr.; J.' J. Lilly. 

Pipestem District. — Allen Clark; Robert W. Clark; G. L. Jor- 
dan; Gordan C. Hughes; William Hughes; C. H. Spangler; W. C. 
Crockett ; James C. Peters. 



756 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Green Sulphur District. — William R. Taylor; William G. Flan- 
agan ; Marion Gwinn ; Jacob Johnson Foster ; W. G. Flanagan ; 
Erastus Beasley; E. P. Beasley; James A. Graham; Andrew A. 
Miller. 

Forest Hill District. — James M. Keatley; Allen L. Harvey; L. 

G. Lowe ; Hugh M. Hill ; A. H. Sanders ; Carey Vass ; Ed. L. 
Dunn ; Henry Dillon ; J. C. Garten ; Samuel K. Boude ; Samuel Al- 
len ; John P. McNeer ; Joseph Mandeville. 

Talcott District. — Enos C. Flint; William R. Taylor; Charles 

H. Graham; Matthew A. Manning; R. T. Ballengee; N. P. Hed- 
rick; Homer Ballangee; A. C. Lowe; J. C. Lively; C. H. Perry; 
William C. Hedrick ; Griffith Meadows ; J. F. Briant ; Clay Gra- 
ham ; James K. Scott ; George P. Scott. 

Greenbrier District. — Henry Milburn ; James E. Meadows; Lu- 
ther M. Dunn; John Buckland ; P. K. Litsinger; Charles L. Par- 
ker ; Carl A. Fredeking ; Harvey Ewart ; Wise W. Lively. 

CONSTABLES OF THE COUNTY. 

Forest Hill District.— T.WV. Townsley ; Hugh M. Hill; W. H. 
Gill; Samuel K. Boude; John Allen. 

Green Sulphur District. — John K. Withrow ; John W. Harris ; 
Theo. P. Withrow; Ballard Ward; William Harris. 

Greenbrier District. — Thaddeus K. Maddy ; James H. Hobbs-; 
James A. Foster ; John W. Wiseman ; Sam G. McCulloch ; W. H. 
Whitten ; Joseph Reed ; Chas. L. Parker ; Charles H. Lilly. 

Jumping Branch District. — Michael Cochran; J. J. Lilly 
("Cud"); Jeff D. Lilly; W. H. Dunbar ; A. J. Cochran. 

Pipestem District. — C. H. Spangler ; John Lucas ; Joseph Wood. 

POSTMASTERS AT HINTON. 

L. M. Dunn; S. F. McBride; James Prince; Major Benjamin S. 
Thompson ; R. R. Flanagan ; and S. W. Willey, who is now serving 
his third term of four years. 

While Green Sulphur Springs is one of the first postoffices es- 
tablished in the county, there have been but two postmasters — 
father and son, Ephraim J. Gwinn and Harrison Gwinn. 

G. C. Landcraft and Joseph M. Haynes have been the only 
postmasters at Pack's Ferry P. O., probably the oldest postoffice 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 757 



in the county. Mr. Landcraft, at the time of his death, was the old- 
est postmaster in point of service in the United States. J. N. 
Haynes is a son of George Haynes, of Monroe County, and mar- 
ried Miss McLaughlin, a niece of Mr. Landcraft, who married a 
daughter of Bartley Pack. 



There are now thirty-four post-offices in the county. At the 
date of its formation there were Rollinsburg, Pack's Ferry, Jump- 
ing Branch, New Richmond, Green Sulphur Springs and Pipestem. 



Three-quarters of a mile above the mouth of Indian Creek there 
is a large rock standing alone and not connected with the cliffs, 
known as the Indian Rock. On this rock are marked characters, 
supposed to have been made by aboriginal inhabitants. No one 
knows the meaning of these characters. Near the end of this rock 
there is cut some kind of hieroglyphics in the shape and form of 
a turkey's foot. It is tradition in that region that the Indians had 
buried something of value thereat, and explorations have been made 
with a view to discovery, but nothing has ever been found to in- 
dicate what, if anything, was ever deposited at or near this ancient 
natural curiosity. 



POSTOFFICES. 



Pack's Ferry, 

Green Sulphur Springs, 

Pipestem, 

Indian Mills, 

Forest Hill, 

Crump's Bottom, 

Jumping Branch, 

Talcott, 

Lowell, 

Pence Springs, 
Elk Knob, 
Barger's Springs, 
Marie, 
Tophet, 

New Richmond, 
Brooks, 

Meadow Creek. 



Foss, 
True, 

Mercer Salt Works 

Wiggins, 

Buck, 

Ballengee, 

Clayton, 

Elton, 

Junta, 

Farley, 

Crump's Bottom, 

Ellison's, 

Ola, 

Lilly, 

Hinton, 

Neponset, 

Mandeville. 



INDIAN ROCK AND OTHER THINGS. 



758 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY. WEST VIRGINIA. 



Dr. Thomas Fowler, the owner of the "Wildwood" plantation 
at the mouth of Indian, some time in the '50's made a visit to the 
Pacific Coast, and on his return home brought with him an Indian 
boy nine years of age. This boy was taken to the Indian Rock, 
and seemed with some intelligence to examine the hieroglyphics 
thereon inscribed and with some signs of recognition. He was 
returned to Dr. Fowler's, made his disappearance afterwards, and, 
upon search being made, was discovered at the rock, which seemed 
to have a natural fascination for him. The boy soon after, how- 
ever, died, having remained with Dr. Fowler two years. He failed 
to become civilized or to show improvement in his customs and 
manners. 

Vincent Sweeney, sometimes called "Swinney," who lived to 
be one of the oldest men in Summers County, lived on the adjoin- 
ing place to the Fowler plantation. ' He died at a very old age, 
leaving no children. 

The mother of Christopher H. Payne, the colored politician, 
preacher and lawyer, was raised by Vincent Sweeney, having mar- 
ried Ann, a slave of Vincent Sweeney's. 

Joseph Gore also lived in this region, and whose heirs and de- 
scendants live in this, Boone County and Mercer, and it was he who 
first secured from the State of Virginia an appropriation for the 
building of the Red Sulphur Turnpike, which leads down New 
River, crossing at Pack's Ferry by way of Jumping Branch, Ra- 
leigh Court House and Fayetteville, intersecting at Kanawha Falls 
with the James River and Kanawha Turnpike. Vincent Sweeney 
was a native of Virginia, and his plantation is now owned by James 
Barton, Jr., an intelligent farmer and good citizen. The adjacent 
place below was owned at one time by Captain Frank Dennis, the 
sailor, who lived at Foss, then at Hinton, and whose tracks had 
been made on the soil of almost every country on the face of the 
globe. His roving disposition permitted him to remain in this 
county for only a few years. Finally selling out all of his belong- 
ings, and marrying after he was sixty years old, he left this region 
for Middleborough, Kentucky, and was afterwards lost sight of. 
Joseph Gore, above referred to, lived near the War Ford in Bull 
Falls. 

On the place in modern times known as the Mike Smith place, 
opposite to which are what is known as the alum rocks, there 
being an abundance of alum in the cliffs, which has been obtained 
for medicinal purposes, but not for commercial uses. 

Captain Frank Dennis above referred to was a native of Mary- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



759 



land, a sailor by trade, a peculiar, whimsical and cranky man, pos- 
sessing a high sense of honor and sensitive loyalty and affection fi »r 
his friends. He is referred to elsewhere fully. 

SOME STATISTICS. 

Since the formation of the county, in 1871, there have been 
2,300 deaths, an average of about 60 a year. A large number of 
these were from accidents, diseases peculiar to children, and the 
infirmities of old age. The climate is healthy. The clouds from 
the Atlantic and those from the Gulf of Mexico meet and form 
ample, yet not a surplus of rains on our mountains and valleys, 
which are so adjusted as to give us the benefit of every wind that 
blows. The summers are never extremely hot, nor the winters 
extremely cold. The vegetation of our county is evidence of the 
fine climate of the region. Trees, plants and vegetables thrive in 
and throughout the county, which is located 37 degress and 30 
minutes north latitude, and 59.5 degrees (Greenwich) west longi- 
tude. The soil is a sandy loam and clay, and adapted to the graz- 
ing of sheep and cattle-raising ; is generally productive, and will 
suport a very large population, although its territory of level land 
is comparatively small in proportion to the uplands, plateaus, hills 
and mountains. 

The year 1905 was the banner year for the issuance of marriage 
licenses in the history of the county. The marriage licenses are 
issued by the clerk of the county court, and for each license so 
issued he receives a fee of $1.00. The law provides that the min- 
ister celebrating the rights of matrimony shall receive from the 
contracting parties a fee of not less than $1.00, who returns the li- 
cense to the clerk after the ceremony is performed, with a certifi- 
cate showing the facts. Quite a number of couples of recent years 
have come to the clerk's office, secured their license, sent for a 
minister (most frequently Rev. J. P. Campbell), and closed up the 
contract then and there. A celebrated performance of this cere- 
mony was once consummated under the foliage of the ancient and 
historic gum tree at the foot of Keeney's Knob, by the Rev. Henry 
C. Tinsley. When called to the point designated, the reverend 
gentleman, with an eye to business, suggested a settlement with 
the needful to the lusty groom-to-be, who was unable to respond, 
but made copious and tearful promises, whereupon the ceremony 
progressed. The lady, a Mrs. Adkins, soon tired of her shiftless 
spouse, and left him for more congenial company, excusing her- 



760 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



self by claiming the marriage was illegal by reason of "her man" 
having failed to pay the preacher. 

Register of marriages in Summers County, since its formation 
to the year 1905. Prepared for the author by the courteous young 
deputy clerk, Mr. Chas. H. Cline : 

Year. Number. 

1871 41 

1872 85 

1873 53 

1874 91 

1875 79 

1876 75 

1877 84 

1878 73 

1879 94 

1880 96 

1881 89 

1882 119 

1883 88 

1884 91 

1885 . . . 93 

1886 .106 

1887 88 

1888 98 

1889 101 

1890 . . . 118 

1891 . . . 114 

1892 162 

1893 - 147 

1894 142 

1895 142 

1896 139 

1897 151 

1898 162 

1899 . . . 197 

1900 183 

1901 .154 

1902 207 

1903 187 

1904 202 

1905 211 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



761 



AMOUNT AND VALUE OF PRODUCTS, 1906. 

Wheat 62,136 bushels Value $ 49,708.80 

Oats .1 500 " " 1,530.00 

Corn 28,860 " " 14,430.00 

Buckwheat 4,480 " " 2,240.00 

Potatoes / ..32,000 " " 16,000.00 

Hay 2,125 tons 21,250.00 

Apples 30,400 bushels " 18,240.00 

Pears 200 " " 1,200.00 

Peaches 5,000 " " 4,000.00 

Cherries 950 " " 2,850.00 

Plums . . 750 " " 1,450.00 

Horses 2,575 head 154,500.00 



Cattle 6,202 

Sheep 5,307 

Angora Goats .... 85 

Swine 4,002 

Poultry 18,173 



186,060.00 
15,927.00 
255.00 
12,006.00 
5,451.90 



PRICES FARM PRODUCTS, 1906. 



Wheat $1.00 per bu. 

Corn .70 

Potatoes 75 

Apples 75 

Plums 1.50 

Buckwheat 75 

Peaches 1.00 



Hay S15.00 per ton 



Poultry 
Butter 
Eggs . . 
Cattle 
Sheep . 
Swine . 



.10 
.20 
.15 
.03 
.05 
.08 



lb. 

doz. 
lb. 



LAND ASSESSMENTS, 1907. 



Forest Hill District $205,720 00 

Greenbrier District, outside of Hinton and 

Avis 135,440 00 

Green Sulphur District 257,565 00 

Jumping Branch District 268,905 00 

Pipestem District 194,050 00 

Talcott District 238,790 00 



Total, outside of Hinton and Avis $1,300,460 00 



762 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



ASSESSMENT OF TOWN LOTS. 



Avis , . . $242,145 00 

Hinton 1,610,160 00 

Green Sulphur Springs 20,365 00 

Jumping Branch (Village) 9,265 00 

Talcott 37,185 00 



Total assessment of town lots $1,919,120 00 

The town and city lot assessments amount to $70,000.00 more 
than the country district assessments. 

The population of Summers County at this time is 18,000; roll- 
ing population, 4,000. 

The assessment of the C. & O. Ry. Co. in the county for 1907 
was $3,734,665.00. 

VALUATIONS. 

The personal property valuation in Summers County for 1907 
is as follows : 

Forest Hill District $99,630 00 

Greenbrier District, outside of 

Hinton and Avis $50,560 00 

Avis . . . - 62,520 00 

Hinton 612,840 00 



Total for Greenbrier District 725,920 00 

Green Sulphur District . ... 200,010 00 

Jumping Branch District 156,820 00 

Talcott District 216,880 00 

Pipestem District 81,330 00 



Total for the county $1,480,590 00 



POPULATION. 

The population of Summers County in 1870 was less than 4,000. 
In 1900 it was 16,000, an increase since the formation of the county 
in 1871 of 12,000 souls. 

The population of Hinton in 1870 was two families ; in 1907, 
over 6,000 souls, including Avis. 

The first house at Lowell was a small cabin, probably built by 
S. T. Lee. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



763 



LAND ASSESSMENTS FOR 1907. 

There have been five land assessments for the county ; usually 
these assessments being made each ten years, but not always, this 
being required by statute. Hon. S. W. Willey, the present post- 
master in the city of Hinton, was the first assessor, and he made 
his re-assessment in the year 1875. The total valuation at that 
time, as made by him, was $94,338.74 increase. It was at that time 
all made as farm land, there being then no town lots within the 
borders of the county. 

The railway and other public utilities were assessed in the 
county by the Board of Public Works, and were as follows: 



Pullman Car Company $7,644 60 

Adams Express Company 2,110 74 

Union Tank Line Co 3,500 00 

Union Refining Transit Co 2,400 00 

Provision Despatch Co 1,600 00 

A. Booth Refrigerator Car Co 800 00 

Hinton Water, Light & Supply Co 50,000 00 

Summers & Mercer Mutual Telephone Co.. 650 24 

Greenville Telephone Co 500 00 

Monroe Mutual Telephone Co 681 15 

Southern Bell Teleg. & Telep. Co 39,734 00 

American Telephone & Telegraph Co 13,446 75 

Western Union Telegraph Co 598 86 



The West Virginia stone in the National Monument in Wash- 
ington City is a block of sandstone secured from Richmond quarry 
at New Richmond. The inscription on this stone is : 

"Tuum nos sumus monumentum." 

It was sent on the 2d of February, 1885, by W. K. Pendleton, State 
Superintendent of Free Schools. It is placed in the monument 
more than two hundred feet above the ground, and is two by four 
feet in dimensions. It was secured from the quarry by Dr. Samuel 
Williams, of New Richmond. 

SOME POINTS OF INTEREST' ABOUT WEST VIRGINIA. 

Area, 24,770 square miles. 

Coke production, 3,400,593 tons. 

Total annual wages, $21,153,042.00. 

Stands first among producers of natural gas. 



764 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Value of mineral gas production, $8,114,249.00. 

The valuation of property has doubled in the last twenty years. 

West Virginia is one of the few States of the Union out of debt. 

Captial invested in manufacturing enterprises, $86,820,823.00. 

Seventy-three per cent, of the State is covered with timber, 
most of which is of good size and quality. 

The largest average number of wage-earners — 46,163 — was em- 
ployed in May, and the smallest — 38,852 — in January. 

There are about 700 coal mines in West Virginia, employing 
about 50,000 men. 

West Virginia is growing so rapidly that the census of 1900 is 
obsolete. 

Population now about 1,250,000, with a larger per cent, of na- 
tive-born than any State in the Union. 

The, climate, soil, water, grass and grain are in the highest de- 
gree favorable to stock farming, and great advancement has been 
made along this line. 

The State leads in oil production, producing 12,500,000 barrels 
last year, and petroleum of fine quality has been found in nearly 
every section. 

Our lumber interests have grown to enormous proportions, but 
millions of acres of splendid forest lands are still awaiting devel- 
opment. 

We have 100,000 farms, producing a great quantity of cereals, 
and the average fertility of the soil is equal to that of any State 
in the Union. 

More than ten per cent, of the entire coal output of the country 
was mined in West Virginia, and the percentage for 1906 will show 
a greater increase. 

Our banking has kept pace with the great development, and 
thirteen new banks started business the past year. We have now 
142 State banks, 76 National banks, and 22 trust companies. 

According to expert estimates, more than $100,000,000.00 has 
been invested in coal and timber lands and coal and timber opera- 
tions and railroad construction in West Virginia in the past three 
years, and indications are that this is but a starter. 

West Virginia stands second in output of coal, production hav- 
ing arisen from 1,400,000 tons in 1880 to 43,000,000 in the past 
year, from the largest coal fields in the country, comprising 17,000 
square miles, or one-thirteenth of the total coal area of the United 
States, and development only fairly started. 

Our hills and valleys are adapted to the culture of all the fruits 



FISHERMEN'S LUCK, 
Greenbrier Springs, 1906. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



765 



grown in this latitude, and produce the finest quality in the great- 
est luxuriance. Great advance has been made, and the total value 
of fruits produced, according to the 1900 census, was $150,000,- 

— "Monroe Watchman," Nov. 27, 1907. 

Mrs. Geo. W. Warren, at one time a resident of Hinton, is an 
authoress of note, having written and published a number of short 
stories. 

The editors and newspaper writers of the county have been : 
Cameron L. Thompson, the founder and editor of the "Mountain 
Herald"; John M. Ferguson, late editor of the same paper ; A. 
Brown Boughner, also of the same paper at a later date ; Geo. W. 
Warren and John H. Jordan, still later; Wm. H. Sawyers, also, as 
well as Howard Templeton. These are the various editors of this 
old-established paper, and the first one printed in the New River 
Valley — established in 1874. 

Richard Burks was a veteran newspaper publisher and a writer 
of merit. At one time and for many years he operated and edited 
the "Union Register," of Monroe County, which in the early days 
after the war had a large circulation in Summers County and its 
territory. Afterward he moved his plant to Hinton and founded 
and published the "Hinton American." 

A. S. Johnston and W. B. Cushing published and edited the 
"Hinton Independent" after its purchase from Chas. Lewis Peck, 
the founder. 

S. F. McBride was a virile writer, and founded the "Hinton Re- 
publican," and later the "Hinton Headlight," which finally became 
the "Hinton Leader." 

J. A. Oldfield, a very forcible writer, edited the "Hinton Re- 
publican," and after him for some time R. Hunter Graham, and 
since it became the "Leader" John W. Graham has owned, edited 
and published it. 

The "Free Lance" was edited during its sickly life by the vet- 
eran editors and newspaper men, Geo. C. Mcintosh and James 
Henderson. 

The greatest freak in the newspaper editorial business was the 
"Yellow Jacket," a free lance Republican paper edited by J. J. 
Swope, the founder of the "Wyoming Mountaineer." It lived dur- 
ing the Congressional campaign of 1902; supported Jas. H. Miller, 
the Democratic candidate for Congress, and was supported by that 
branch of the old-time Republicans who were opposed to the 
nomination of Joseph Holt Gaines. 



766 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Dr. Wm. H. Talley, Squire Allen L. Harvey and other leaders 
of the Greenback party established the "Hinton Banner" in 1878, 
of which Dr. Talley was the editor. It led a feeble existence for 
a year or so. 

Paper before the war was exceedingly scarce. Tax tickets, 
for instance, were made out of little strips of paper large enough 
to make a condensed statement of taxes, frequently written, and 
not printed, on brown paper or scraps of paper. Receipts and 
accounts were kept in a similar way. A sheet of paper would be 
cut into narrow strips just large enough for a condensed receipt 
or statement or account. We give below a sample of the tax 
tickets used some time prior to the war, which were written out 
by the sheriff, evidently in the presence of the taxpayer. 



Robert Boyd, 



August 20 



To Taxes of 1849 



Rec. Pay't, 



S. M. Meadows, D. S. 



Mr. Robert Boyd, 



To the Sheriff of Monroe County, 



Dr. 



To 1 Poll, County and Parish levy 

Personal Property 

Land tax 

Railroad tax — Land 



$1.50 
2.36 
4.20 
5.70 



$13.76 

John W. Lanias, S. M. C. 



1817 



Robt. Boyd, 



To the Sheriff of Monroe County, 



Dr. 



1 Poll at 75 Horse 18 
Land 22 

M. C. Note 236 

M. G. Note 42 



$ .93 
.22 
2.36 
.42 



1818 Feb. 28 By Cash. 3.93 

M. Erskine, D. S. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 767 



1862 

Patrick Boyd's Heirs, 

To the Sheriff of Monroe County. 

To County levy at $ Parish levy at c. 

Cap. tax at $ 

To slaves and property tax on $ valuation. 

To land tax on 10 acres 12 

Rec. Payt. S. A. Clark, Dr. 

For A. L. Harvey, S. M. C. 



Robert Boyd, Dr. 

To the Sheriff of Monroe County. 

1827 I Poll $ .75 

2 Horses 24 

Land 47 

C T 50 



1.90 

Hugh Caperton, D. S. 



ATTORNEYS-AT-LAW. 

The following is a list of attorneys-at-law who have prac- 
ticed in Summers County since its formation as a county, as shown 
by the records of the circuit court, and the year in which they 
qualified at this bar. This work is done by Walter H. Boude, Esq., 
clerk of the circuit court of the county at this date : 



N. M. Lowry 1871 

A. A. Ghapman .1872 

C. A. Sperry . . . 1871 

A. G. Tebbetts 187.1 

Cyrus Newlin 1872 

James H. McGinnis 1872 

W. G. Ryan 1872 

J. B. Peck 1873 

Robert C. McClaugherty 1873 

R. F. Dennis 1873 

J. Speed Thompson 1873 

Martin H. Holt 1873 

John A. Douglass 1873 

Fount W. Mahood 1873 



768 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

W. W. Adams 1873 

A. C. Snyder 1874 

J. C. Reed ...,1874 

James F. Patton 1873 

A. J. Lacy 1874 

H. T. Wickham 1874 

Governor Samnel Price 1874 

J. F, Snyder 1874 

John A. Preston 1875 

James H. French 1875 

- Alex. F. Mathews 1876 

A. N. C. Levenson Gower 1877 

John W. Harris 1874 

John W. Arbuckle 1874 

A. N. Campbell 1873 

John W. McCreery 1873 

Colonel James W. Davis .1873 

M. A. Steele 1875 

A. C. Fellers 1876 

M. Vanpelt .....1877 

Wm. R. Thompson 1877 

George W. Easley 1877 

James W. Malcolm 1878 

David E. Johnson 1877 

Elbert Fowler 1874 

J. D. Logan . . . . .1878 

Mark Jarrett 1879 

H. D. McCue 1879 

F. B. Smith 1880 

Thomas N. Page 1881 

A. C. Houston . .. .1881 

Wm. H. McGinnis . . . 1881 

James D. Johnston 1881 

Frank Hereford 1881 

A. W. Hawley 1882 

A. C. Davidson 1882 

J. W. St. Clair 1882 

John H. Crozier . . 1882 

Samuel W. Williams ..1883 

C. P. Snyder 1883 

James H. Brown 1883 

E. Willis Wilson 1883 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

J. W. Hale *. 1883 

Albert W. Reynolds 1883 

A, P. Farley 1883 

J. M. Payne 1881 

C. W. Bocock 1881 

James H. Miller 1882 

J. W. Cracraft 1882 

P. P. Garland 1882 

W. S. Laidley 1884 

George D. Haynes 1884 

John Osborne ^ 1884 

James P. Pack 1884 

J. W. Isbell 1884 

George W. Warren 1884 

Henry C. Simms 1885 

C. W. Smith 1885 

Charles A. Clark 1885 

John J. Cabell ..1885 

F. S. Blair 1885 

-C. C. Watts ....1885 

Trim E. Kenna 1885 

John S. Rudd .1885 

Frank J. Parke 1885 

James H. Ferguson 1885 

W. G. Hudgin 1886 

James M. French 1886 

S. C. Burdette 1886 

Walter M. Gwinn 1886 

George R. Poole 1885 

Frank Lively 1886 

A. P. Farley . 1886 

W. F. Boggess 1886 

A. J. Oliver (colored) 1887 

J. A. Bings 1887 

Joseph E. Chilton 1887 

Thomas G. Mann 1887 

Henry Gilmer 1888 

J. B. Laidley 1888 

C. W. Campbell 1888 

Thomas H. Dennis 1888 

F. B. Enslow 1888 

L. M. Day 1888 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



J. D. Daniels 1888 

John H. Holt 1889 

H. W. Straley, Jr . . . .1889 

P. B. Stanard 1889 

L. D. Isbell 1888 

H. W. Brazie 1889 

Homer A. Holt 1890 

C. B. Cushing .1890 

H. A. Mykrantz 1890 

M. A. Manning 1890 

Alfred Rheistorm .1890 

W. S. Thompson 1891 

James W. Hayes 1891 

John D. Alderson v .1891 

John M. McGrath 1891 

J. J. Swope , 1892 

F. M. Hartman . . 1892 

J. R. Kountz . ..1892 

W. E. Chilton 1892 

L. J. Williams ....1892 

R.'L. Keadle ..1893 

M. Jackson 1893 

M. B. Stickley 1893 

Ben. H. Oxley : 1893 

Wm. H. Sawyers '...1893 

Thomas N. Read 1893 

J. S. Clark 1894 

C. R. Summerfield 1894 

H. S. Douthitt 1894 

C. M. Alderson 1894 

P. W. Strother 1894 

John W. Johnson 1894 

S. L. Flournoy ...1894 

Geo. E. Price , 1895 

W. W. Lively 1895 

J. A. Oldfield 1895 

A. R. Heflin 1895 

H. D. Perkins 1896 

W. D. Payne 1896 

W. H. Garnett 1897 

R. M. Baker 1897 

Herbert Fitzpatrick 1897 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Alfred B. Percy 1897 

E. W. Nowlan 1895 

James P. D. Gardner (colored) 1897 

T. C. Lowry 1897 

E. W. Knight 1897 

R. F. Dunlap . 1897 

A. G. Patton 1897 

Wm. H. Copeland 1897 

E. S. Curtis ...1897 

G. M. Ford 1898 

E. C. Eagle 1898 

George J. Thompson 1898 

C. W. Ossenton 1898 

E. M. Keatley '. 1899 

Wm. A. Wade .......1899 

Wesley Mollohan 1899 

A. V. Perkinson 1899 

J. French Strother 1899 

Robert H. Miller 1899 

George W. Lewis 1899 

Robert McEldowney . . . 1900 

A. A. Lilly . ..1900 

T. L. Sweeney (colored) 1900 

T. M. Garvin 1900 

P. W. Boggess 1900 

T. L. Henritze 1900 

M. I. Dunn 1901 

L T pshur Higginbotham 1901 

Roy R. Hoge - 1899 

I. E. Christian 1902 

J. F. Maynard 1902 

George J. Mc Comas 1902 

T. W. Peyton 1902 

E. L. Nuckells '...1902 

C. W. Allen ...1902 

James W. Marshall 1903 

Wm. R. Bennett 1903 

L. E. Poteet 1903 

R. J. Thrift 1905 

A. D. Daly 1903 

M. N. Higginbotham 1904 

J. Alex. Meadows ■ 1898 



772 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Ira C. Green '. . 1905 

J. W. Kennedy . 1905 

Ashton File 1905 

J. Lewis Bumgardner 1905 

M. F. Matheney 1905 

J. M. Ellis (colored) 1906 

R. H. Graham 1906 

S. B. Thomas 1906 

W. L. Lee 1907 

John T. Simms 1907 

Robert S. Spillman 1907 

J. E. Price 1907 

Robert E. Maxwell " 1907 

Robert Bland 1907 



TWO UNFORTUNATE YOUNG LAWYERS. 

George D. Haynes, a descendant of the ancient Haynes family 
who settled in Fayette County, married a Miss Holliday and came 
to Summers County when about twenty-five years of age. He 
taught school, residing on Lick Creek, where he purchased a small 
tract of land and erected a residence. He studied law and was an 
energetic man, a loyal man, and an honest man. After residing 
there for a few years, when the financial misfortune came to the 
firm of Bearse & Hall at Meadow Creek, which had been doing a 
large and extensive stave, lumber and mercantile business, having 
one of the largest general merchandise stores of Summers County 
at Meadow Creek. Mr. Haynes was appointed receiver by Judge 
A. X. Campbell. He had for several years been studying law, and 
had been admitted a few years previous to the practice. He then 
removed to Meadow Creek about 1885, took charge of and wound 
up that extensive business as receiver, teaching school in the 
meantime and practicing his profession. After closing out this 
business, he removed to Hinton, purchasing property in Smith 
Hollow and residing there for some time, later purchasing the 
Jordan property on the court house square, where he lived until 
his death, with his family. He was elected and served one term 
as recorder and one term as mayor of Hinton. 

Phil D. Stanard, a native of Rockingham County, Virginia, some 
time prior to the removal of Mr. Haynes to Hinton, had come to 
Hinton as a railway employee in the station at Hinton. During 
his employment he studied law with James H. Miller, and was 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



773 



admitted to the practice. He was a bright young man. After 
being admitted to the practice he removed to Newcastle, Virginia, 
married a young lady from Lexington, Virginia, practiced there 
for a few years, and then about the time Mr. Haynes came to Hin- 
ton, Air. Stanard removed his family to the same city, and he and 
Air. Haynes formed a partnership as Haynes & Stanard. Their 
business grew, and they were growing in the confidence of the 
people, but in the spring of about 1895 Mr. Stanard was found in 
a dying condition in the third story of the Tyree Building, on the 
corner of Third and Front Streets, lying in a bed. Some powders 
were found in the room and the paper covers from others were 
found there, and the evidence showed that he had taken an over- 
dose of morphine. An inquest was held, and the conclusion ar- 
rived at was that no crime had been committed, and that Air. 
Stanard had either taken this overdose intentionally or by inad- 
vertence, he having become addicted to some extent to the use of 
this drug. He was buried at Lexington, Virginia, and thus the 
firm of Haynes & Stanard terminated. He was a man of bright 
intellect, with a bright future before him. 

Soon after. Judge A. R. Herlin removed to Hinton and formed 
a partnership with Air. Haynes, under the firm name of Haynes & 
Herlin. Within about twelve months afterwards. Air. Haynes had 
been out of town attending to some legal matters ; returned home 
on Saturday night, and on Sunday was found dead in his bed. He 
had also unfortunately become addicted to the use of strong drink, 
and had either taken an overdose of some drug intentionally or by 
inadvertence. They were about thirty-five years of age. Thus 
terminated the lives of these two young men. The family of Air. 
Haynes still resides in Summers County, his widow having married 
Rufus Bragg, of Green Sulphur District. 

SKETCHES BY CLERK BOUDE OF A FEW OF THE LAW- 
YERS WHO HAVE PRACTICED AT THE SUMMERS 
BAR SINCE THE FORMATION OF THE COUNTY 

IN 1871. 

Gen. A. A. Chapman, lawyer, dropped dead at the railway track 
in Hinton. from apoplexy, en route to Charleston, about 1877. and 
Alajor Cyrus Newlan, a Xew Yorker, located at Union, died of 
heart disease while attending court in Hinton some few years 
after the formation of the county. He was a very bright man. but 



774 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



dissipated, and was called a "carpet bagger." He is buried in 
Hinton, but nothing to show his last resting place. 

J. B. Peck, 1873. Was a native of Giles County and lived in 
Virginia and practiced his profession for many years, and was a 
good lawyer. He died recently. 

John A. Preston, 1875. He is a member of the Lewisburg 
Bar and an able practitioner, and one of the most popular men of 
Greenbrier County. He is a Democrat and has represented his 
people as prosecuting attorney and delegate to the Legislature. 

John W. Harris, 1875. Has been a member of the Lewisburg 
Bar for many years and is a lawyer of ability. He now resides in 
Richmond, Virginia. 

Gen. A. A. Chapman was a resident of Monroe County, where 
he resided many years. He practiced here in the early history of 
the county, and rode horseback from his home in Union, and at- 
tended the courts of this county before the completion of the rail- 
road. He was elected to Congress when this part of the State 
was Virginia. He was a good lawyer and enjoyed a large prac- 
tice, and attended many of the courts in the adjoining counties. 
Few men in the country were better known than Gen. Chapman. 
He died in Hinton in 1876, while on his way to attend a Demo- 
cratic Congressional Convention at Charleston. 

David E. Johnston, 187£. His home is in Bluefield, Mercer 
County, and one of the leading lawyers of this part of the State. 
He is identified with many enterprises of his State, and few men 
in Southern West Virginia are better known. He was a Confed- 
erate soldier during the Civil War, and is the author of several 
books. He was elected to Congress from this district in 1898. 

A. C. Snyder, 1874. Was from the Greenbrier Bar and was a 
good lawyer. He was a judge of the Supreme Court of Appeals 
of West Virginia at one time. 

John W. Arbuckle, 1874. Is a native of Greenbrier County and 
a leading citizen. He is quite an active man in his profession and 
a most excellent speaker- and political campaigner. He is quite 
popular throughout the Greenbrier Valley. Has represented his 
people in the State Senate. 

Alexander F. Mathews, 1876. He lived in Greenbrier County, 
and was a very prominent man in the State and a fine lawyer. He 
was a brother of Governor Henry M. Mathews. He died a short 
time ago. 

W. W. Adams came here in the early 70's from Virginia and 
soon built up a lucrative practice. He was a great mixer with 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



775 



the people, and soon became well known. He was an able man 
in his profession and had the confidence of the people. He was a 
Democrat and elected to the State Senate in 1876. About the 
year 1884 he moved to Charleston, where he died in 1894. At the 
time of his death he was a member of the law firm of Adams 
& Miller. 

Martin H. Holt, 1873. Lived at Beckley, in Raleigh County, 
and was a native of Floyd County, Virginia. He died at Wyoming 
Court House while attending a term of the circuit court of that 
county. It is said that he died while sitting at the table drinking 
a cup of coffee. 

M. Vanpelt, 1877. Was a lawyer from the county of Fayette, 
and lived in that county for many years. He represented this 
district in the State Senate for one term, commencing in 1887. 
He was the superintendent of the penitentiary during the Mc- 
Corkle administration. 

James H. McGinnis was born in Logan County, Virginia, now 
West Virginia, and lived in the county of Raleigh for many years. 
We find from the records that he was practicing law in Summers 
County in the year 1872, and for a number of years after had con- 
siderable business at this bar. He was a brilliant man in his pro- 
fession and well known throughout the State. He was a Repub- 
lican in politics and a leader among his people. He had no ene- 
mies. He was ever ready to lend a helping hand to those who 
needed his assistance and influence. He was a prominent figure 
and noted landmark of Raleigh County. Died at Beckley Sep- 
tember 2, 1907, at the age of seventy-nine years. He had been 
prosecuting attorney of Raleigh and Fayette Counties. He was 
the father of W. H. McGinnis and J. D. McGinnis, both members of 
the Raleigh Bar. He was admitted to the bar in early life. 

A. G. Tebbetts came to Monroe County, West Virginia, from 
New Hampshire and began practicing law in Union during the 
days of reconstruction. He attended the courts of this county for 
a time while he resided in Monroe, and made a number of friends, 
and his name is often mentioned by the older settlers. He was a 
careful and safe man in business. He removed to Charleston, West 
Virginia, where he died. 

Nelson M. Lowry was the first attorney to locate in Summers 
County for the practice of his profession after its organization in 
1871. He came here when quite a young man, and lived in Hinton 
for a number of years. He soon built up a large practice, and had 
the reputation of a good lawyer. He was quite popular among his 
people and well known. He was a Democrat and a leader in his 



776 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



party. He was elected to the Legislature in 1880. and in the year 
1885 went West, and died in Texas a few years later. 

A. N. Campbell is among the leading lawyers of the State; 
was judge of the Tenth Judicial Circuit for eight years and has 
represented his county in the Legislature. His home is in Monroe 
County, and no man in that county is closer to the hearts of his 
people than Judge Xelse Campbell. He was a Confederate soldier 
during the Civil War. He graduated in law at the Washington 
and Lee University, and his diploma is signed by Gen. Robert E. 
Lee. He has a fine memory and seldom forgets a face or name. 
He is a man of great physical strength and well endowed by 
nature. He is still in the active practive of his profession. 

Elbert Fowler was a native of Monroe (now Summers County) 
and reared at the mouth of Indian Creek. He was a Confederate 
soldier and member of Lowry's Battery, and after the close of the 
war began the practice of his profession. He was an able and 
successful laAvyer and a great friend to the common people. Xo 
'man was more true to his friends. He founded the "Border Watch- 
man," afterwards called the "Monroe County Watchman," in the 
early 70's. which is now one of the oldest and most influential 
newspapers in West Virginia. He was an energetic and able 
writer. He was elected prosecuting attorney of this count}* in 
1876, and served four years in that office. He was a leading Demo- 
crat and a fine politician. At the time of his death he was a 
member of the law firm of Fowler & Miller. He^ died in 1885. 

Frank Hereford came to Monroe County from California soon 
after the close of the Civil War. He did much for this part of 
the country during the days of reconstruction. He was elected to 
Congress from the Third District in 1872. and re-elected in 1874 
on the Democratic ticket, and few men in our country were more 
popular. In 1877 he was elected L nited States Senator to succeed 
the late Allen T. Caperton. who was then in the Senate from the 
county of Monroe. Mr. Hereford was a conservative man and was 
always found true and loyal to his people. He often visited Sum- 
mers Countv in its early days, and did much to encourage its 
people and build up its institutions. He died in 189 — . 

FORTS. 

The pioneer settlers established forts for their protection against 
the attacks of the savage Indians who still infested the regions 
west of the Allegheny Mountains, as well as from the attacks of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 777 

wild beasts and reptiles. The forts that were established and 
maintained within the borders of this county so far as we are able 
to learn are as follows : Keeney's Fort was located at the foot of 
Keeney's Knobs; the exact location is in some doubt, and on which 
side of the mountain. There was a fort on the bottoms below 
Alderson in the county near the mouth of Griffith's Creek. Jarret's 
Fort was on Wolf Creek at the mouth on the Summers side of the 
river. There was a fort on Indian Creek three miles from its mouth 
known as the Cook's Fort. There were two forts on Culbertson's 
or Crump's Bottom, one known as Farley's Fort. This was estab- 
lished by Captain Matt Farley. The other, Field's Fort. There 
was another on the Gatliff Bottoms, or Barker place. There was 
a fort several hundred yards below the Green Sulphur Springs 
which was much older than any civilized settlement of this region. 
It was built of stone across the bottom near where the frame barn 
of Harrison Gwinn now stands. The remains are still to be plainly 
seen. This was constructed by the Indians before the whites 
had ever crossed the Alleghenies. The houses of the settlers 
were constructed for defensive purposes, and were forts on a 
miniature scale. Many of them had no windows whatever. An 
example of this still remains on the old Ballangee place at the 
mouth of Greenbrier, still standing. Evi Ballangee and his brother 
John inherited the land from their father, George. He and his 
sister neither ever married, both living to be very old people. There 
was another brother, John, who settled at the foot of Keeney's 
Knob, in the Graham settlement, which place is now owned by 
Squire C. H. Graham, who married his daughter. This house at 
the mouth of Greenbrier was a house of the aristocratic in its 
day, and never had a window in it until fifteen years ago, when 
Evi had a window constructed in the walls of the house, and- a 
well dug in the yard, over which he had a little frame house con- 
structed, covered with corrugated iron, of which he was very 
proud. One fort in a settlement was expected to accommodate 
all the people in the surrounding section. If an alarm was made 
of a prospective Indian attack, all the settlers gathered with their 
women, children, cattle and effects into the fort. Many of the 
dwellings were so constructed as to enable the occupants to fight 
the savages, after the Indian incursions had become less frequent. 



778 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE IRISH SETTLEMENT. 

About 1870 there settled on the mountain above Elton, in 
Green Sulphur District, several native Irish families, who have 
formed and grown into a thrifty, enterprising and law-abiding 
community. Among them was Thomas Hurley, a native of Ire- 
land, who married Catharine Lawler. He was a native of Cork 
County, Ireland ; purchased four hundred acres of good mountain 
land, and there raised a family and died. His children are Jerry, 
John, Dennis, James and Timothy. Dennis married Mary Sulli- 
van, of Raleigh County. The daughters were Nora, who married 
John Hurley, from Ireland ; Margaret, who married Tom Goheen ; 
and Ellen, unmarried. 

Another family was that of Richard Twohig, who emigrated 
to this country from Ireland in 1850, first locating in Rockingham 
County, Virginia. He aided in building the Chesapeake & Ohio 
Railroad. He married Julia Shay, dying in Greenbrier County. 
The boys were James, Dennis, Bartholomew and Richard, and 
one daughter, Mary, who married Jerry Hurley, son of Thomas 
Hurley. 

Another of these families was Patrick Conly. His wife was 
Margaret Hagerty, also from Cork County, Ireland, locating in 
that region in 1869. He left a number of children. Among them 
were Dennis, who married Nora Sullivan, and Patrick. 

Another family was Terrence Foley, who left two sons, John 
and Patrick Foley. 

Another family was Edward McGuire, who left five sons sur- 
viving him — Morris, Edward, John, Mike and Patrick. 

Another family was Florence Donohue. He left surviving him 
Pat, Morris, Dan and Florence, and two daughters, Mary and 
Annie. 

Another family was John Hurley, also from Ireland, and who 
married a daughter of Thomas Hurley's. 

These Irish settlers were faithful Catholics, and about 1876 
erected the second Catholic Church built in Summers County, 
named Saint Kehrens. It was planned and built under the super- 
vision of Father David Walsh. The first building was of logs. 
Later the old building was abandoned, and at the present day 
they have a frame house of worship, the present pastor being 
Father De Ladd. 

There was another family of Irish settlers who located near 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



779 



the top of Keeney's Knob, the head of which was James Hurley. 
He purchased some four hundred acres of land from the John and 
Alex. Miller estate, all. in the woods. During his lifetime he 
cleared a large and fertile farm, rearing a family of boys and 
girls thereon. The boys were Morris, who was born on the ocean, 
during their emigration. He was a self-made and educated gen- 
tleman, taking a course at the Concord Normal School ; taught 
•school a number of years in the free schools, and attended the old 
"Gum" School on Lick Creek. He removed to Kansas about 1885, 
and died soon thereafter. The second son was William, who also 
emigrated to Kansas, and is now a citizen of that State. Another 
son, Michael, lives in Raleigh County. The daughters were Mary, 
Nora and Bridget. Bridget married Joseph Dick, who lives on 
the old plantation. 

These Irish settlers were all devout Catholics, and were vis- 
ited periodically by the representative of the church. Thev are 
good, honest, industrious citizens. 

Patrick O'Leary was another Irish-American who settled in 
this neighborhood, and reared a family of boys and girls. 

DOCTORS. 

The doctors who have practiced medicine in the county are 
given as nearly as we can do so at this late day. At the first set- 
tlement, and for years afterward, there were but few practicing 
physicians within our territory. Before the war there had been 
but one doctor located in Green Sulphur District, he being Dr. 
N. W. Noell, who had located at Green Sulphur Springs a short 
time before the beginning of hostilities, upon which he migrated 
to Eastern Virginia and entered the Southern Army, returning 
after the Avar and resuming his practice. Before that time the 
services of a physician were secured from Blue Sulphur Springs. 
Dr. Samuel Beard, practicing in all that territory, had his office 
in that place. Dr. Beard was among the older class of physicians, 
having married a daughter of Jacob Hamilton. There was an- 
other doctor at Blue Sulphur Springs by the name of Martin — a 
Frenchman — who also practiced in that region up until the war. 
One time he claimed a large boundary of land, including the Red 
Spring, a branch of Slater's Creek, and extending on to the waters 
of Mill Creek Fork. This large boundary he placed under fence; 
but dying about the beginning of the war, and having no heirs or 
relatives in this country, his title lapsed, and his claim reverted 



780 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



to the Schermerhorns. He was a man of peculiar abilities, had 
an extensive laboratory, and was possessed of some genius. Dr. 
Noel, after the war, located on Lick Creek, and continued in active 
practice until his death, some fifteen years ago, being succeeded 
by his son, Dr. Edgar E. Noel, who still resides at Green Sulphur 
Springs, and practices his profession throughout all that territory. 
During the war Dr. Samuel Williams emigrated and settled on 
that creek also, and practiced in that region until his death. 

These pioneer doctors rode horseback over the mountains into 
Raleigh, Monroe, Greenbrier and Fayette counties. No call went 
unheeded. The compensation charged by them was nominal com- 
pared with the prices of to-day. They were benefactors and phi- 
lanthropists to those people, and their praises will descend to fu- 
ture generations. No such thing was ever heard of as these coun- 
try doctors suing their patients. 

Later Dr. J. W. Rifle settled in the Lick Creek country, prac- 
ticed his profession a few years, and removed to Indiana. Dr. G. 
D. Lind located first at Meadow Creek and later at New Rich- 
mond, where he now practices throughout that region. He is an in- 
telligent, educated practitioner, and was a professor in medicine in 
the National University at Lebanon, Ohio, for a number of years. 
Dr. J. E. Hume also located and practiced for some time at 
Meadow Creek. Dr. Lind is an authority on archaeology and an 
enlightened gentleman. Drs. Bigony and Cooper of Hinton, both 
attended the Lebanon School, of which Dr. Lind was a professor. 

The first doctor in Pipestem District and Jumping Branch 
was a Dr. Greenleaf, who practiced throughout the region of those 
districts and in Mercer and Raleigh. Later Dr. John Lilly, the 
first native physician within the territory, located in Jumping 
Branch, and has there practiced his profession for forty years. 
He is a brother of "Miller Bob" Lilly, Captain Jonathan Lilly, 
Mrs. M. C. Barker and Mrs. Levi Neeley. His travels cover a 
territory of many miles on horseback. He discovered and origi- 
nated the celebrated cure for fevers and malaria which he manu- 
factures. He is now postmaster at Jumping Branch, and has been 
for the past twelve years. He was never known to sue for a doc- 
tor's bill or for medical services. His son, L. L. Lilly, also gradu- 
ated and located for the practice of medicine at Flat Top, a few 
years ago, but soon afterward died from consumption. In later 
years Drs. Amick, Brown and Abshire have located within Dr. 
Lilly's territory. 

In Forest Hill District, Dr. L. C. Thrasher was the first doctor 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



781 



to locate permanently in that whole territory, the lower end of 
Monroe County having been under the practice of Dr. Henry 
Butt, one of the most celebrated and widely known physicians 
and surgeons in this part of the State. Later Dr. Wykel, now of 
Hinton, who married a daughter of Hon. S. W. Willey, located 
at the mouth of Indian, and practiced there for a short time. He 
is also a native of Summers County. Dr. Smith, of Virginia, also 
located at the same place and practiced for a few years. Dr. Kyle 
Vass and Dr. Dillon, sons of Squire Cary Vass and Rev. Henry 
Dillon, natives of this county, graduated in medicine in 1907. Dr. 
J. C. Vermillion practiced medicine in the upper end of Forest 
Hill and Greenbrier Districts for a number of years, being a resi- 
dent of Foss, and later located above Pack's Ferry, where he died 
some six years ago. He was from Southwest Virginia and a 
cultured gentleman. He married a daughter of "Squire" James E. 
Meadows. He was a man of fine attainments in his profession. 

The only doctor on New River for many miles was Dr. Thomas 
Fowler, who died in the 50's. He was a native of Tennessee, and 
located at the mouth of Indian, where he acquired a magnificent 
plantation, owned a large number of slaves, and built the first 
brick house ever built in the county, and it remains one of the 
finest residences therein. He married a Chapman, and there raised 
a distinguished family, including Dr. Allen Fowler, Hon. I. C. 
Fowler, Hon. Elbert Fowler, Mrs. Johnson and Mrs. Paris. Dr. 
Holdran located at Tophet, a few years ago, and practiced for a 
short time in that territory. 

At Talcott the first doctors to locate were Drs. J. W. Ford 
and J. W. de Vebber. These gentlemen practiced under the firm 
name of Ford & de V ebber for a number of years. After the dis- 
solution of the firm, Dr. Ford continued, and still resides in that 
town and practices throughout that vicinity — a very excellent and 
enterprising physician, and one of the surgeons for the C. & O. 
Railway Co. He married a daughter of Paul Knight, Esq. 

In Greenbrier, the first physician to locate therein was Dr. 
Benj. P. Gooch ; then Dr. J. G. Manser; then followed Dr. Shan- 
non B. Peck, Dr. Victor Quesenberry, and later his nephew, Dr. 
George O. Quesenberry; Drs. J. Thompson Hume, J. G. Haley, 
J. A. Palmer, and O. O. Cooper, who owns and operates the first 
medical hospital established in this part of the State — the cele- 
brated Hinton Hospital, in which he is chief surgeon, with Drs. 
R. B. Miler and George Pence as associate surgeons; Dr. John 
F. Bigony, who established, owns and operates the Bigony Hos- 



782 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



• pital, with his brother, Dr. Hiram Bigony, as assistant surgeon. 
Dr. G. W. Holley is the first and only physician of color to ever 
locate or ^practice the profession of medicine in. Summers County. 
He has also erected and owns and controls a hospital for the treat- 
ment of colored patients in the city of Hinton. Dr. William L. 
Barksdale, an old Confederate Army surgeon, who has been in 
active practice longer than any other physician in the county, lo- 
cated in Hinton some twelve years ago, removing to that city 
from Alderson. Dr. Jos. A. Fox located in the city some three 
or four years ago. Dr. Samuel Henry Hartwell, who owns and 
resides on the old W'illey place, on the Wolf Creek Mountain, 
having married a daughter of Eber Willey, the settler, has a large 
practice over an extensive territory in that region. The natives 
of the county engaged in the practice of medicine are : Drs. J. A. 
Gooch and Carlos A. Gooch, sons of Dr. B. P. Gooch ; Dr. B. B. 
Richmond, a son of John A. Richmond, of New Richmond, now 
located at Page, West Virginia; Drs. E. E. Noel, Allen Fowler, 
- W. H. Manser, J. W. RitTe arid J. A. Wykel ; Dr. Barker, a son 
of Jonathan L. Barker; Drs. Yass and Dillon; Dr. W. C. Nowland, 
and Dr. Hartwell. 

The first doctor to locate at Talcott was Dr. Thos. Bray, the 
English surgeon, about 1871. 

There w r as an itinerant doctor, who for many years did a ram- 
bling practice in the lower end of the county. He was a "Thomp- 
sonian" or "herb doctor," and something of a genius in his way. 
His name was Thomas. 

The latest doctor to locate in Hinton is Dr. J. A. Palmer, who 
married Miss Nellie Gott, an accomplished lady of Hinton. 

Dr. Thrasher, above mentioned, killed himself by taking the 
Avrong medicine, swallowing poison, at the Red Sulphur, some 
thirty years ago. His son in recent years located at Forest Hill 
and practiced for several years, and then removed to Greenbrier 
County, and is an accomplished physician, and was succeeded by 
Dr. W. C. Nowlan, a son of Jos. Nowlan, who was succeeded by 
Dr. Hunter and Dr. Ryan, who now occupy that territory. 

LUMBERMEN. 

The stave and lumber industry has been one of the principal 
industries of the county. For a number of years, immediately fol- 
lowing the advent of the C. & O. Railway, numerous timber and 
lumbermen came into the county, and began the manufacture and 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



783 



shipment of staves and lumber. One of the first on the ground 
was Theodore Arter, Esq., of Cleveland, Ohio, a representative of 
the Standard Oil Company, who made his headquarters at Hinton 
about 1875, retaining the same practically all of the time at this 
place, and buying and shipping practically all of the oil barrel 
staves manufactured in this region. He was an active and shrewd 
business man. 

Robert Elliott was another of the ancient lumbermen. He was 
a native of Canada, and was actively engaged for several years in 
the county, residing in Hinton, and was a member of its city coun- 
cil in the early days, and was connected with Judge W. S. Lewis' 
operations, and then entered the business on his own account. 
He married a daughter of James Rose, of the mouth of Bluestone, 
a granddaughter of Anderson Pack. Oscar Roles, a son of James 
Roles, was raised at the mouth of Bluestone, on the old Pack 
lands, and is now a business man at Bluefield. The other sons 
of James Rose were Garfield and Howard, who both died — How- 
ard in the West and Garfield at his home — when about twenty- 
five years of age. Judge W. S. Lewis, of Kentucky, was a large 
stave and lumberman operating in the county for many years. 
W. R. Johnston, a Pennsylvanian, was one of the first stave and 
lumbermen who came into the county, operating first on Beech 
Run, and was probably the first man to make sawed oil barrel 
staves in the county. The first split stave hogsheads ever made 
in the county were made by Captain Silas F. Taylor, in the hollow 
known as Ben Bebber (Van Bibber), on the headwaters of Lick 
Creek, on a tract of land he had purchased from Captain A. A. 
Miller — one hundred acres — in exchange for building the brick 
house now resided in by John A. George, Esq., on that creek. 
Captain Taylor and his sons got out a large number of these 
large staves, placed them in Lick Creek and floated them to New 
Richmond, where they were loaded in cars. He was the pioneer 
stave man in Summers County. It was he who built the brick 
house for Andrew Gwinn at Lowell, the brick house for Augustus 
Gwinn, near Alderson, and many brick houses in other counties, 
being the pioneer brick mason for all this region, and a very hon- 
est workman and contractor. 

Another of the ancient lumbermen in the county was M. Hutch- 
inson, who did a large lumber and stave business in the lower 
Lick Creek country, and was succeeded in the business by his 
son Ed, who was killed while engaged therein. John A. Rich- 
mond early engaged in the purchase, shipment and sale of the 



784 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



large split staves. Thos. J. Jones and his boys also dealt largely 
in staves at one time on Laurel Creek. James Allen Graham and 
his brother, C. H. Graham, as well as their uncle, John Graham, 
were early lumbermen in the county. The Graham brothers bought 
a mill and located at the foot of Keeney's Knob, hauling the mill 
and machinery across that big mountain. They located on the 
W. A. Miller land, and sawed a large amount of poplar timber, 
which they hauled to New Richmond and shipped. Later they 
engaged in business on Laurel Creek. M. A. Carroll located a 
mill in the early days at New Richmond, and manufactured large 
quantities of lumber. 

The first sawmill man to operate at Meadow Creek was a Mr. 
Moore, from Pennsylvania, later succeeded by B. F. Hall and 
Owen Bearse, Jr. Bearse was from Massachusetts and Hall from 
Ohio. They did a large business at Meadow Creek. A tram-road 
was built for several miles up that creek, and the products brought 
down to the railroad ; but they finally failed, went into the hands 
of a receiver, and the business was wound up, George D. Haynes, 
the lawyer, being the receiver. Owen Bearse, Jr., was a man of 
parts — educated, courteous and gentlemanly. He did a large busi- 
ness in the shipment of split staves to foreign lands. Marcelliott 
& Bearse was the original firm, which began business in the early 
70's, on Lick Creek. They at one time owned the whole of North 
Alderson, purchasing the same and converting it into town lots. 
Benjamin F. Hall came in the early days of the county into the 
country, first as a stave inspector, and later engaging in the busi- 
ness himself, and became an active politician. At one time he was 
a candidate for commissioner of the county court, and at another 
time for the Legislature, and at his death was postmaster at 
Meadow Creek. He was a very large, jovial man, and a bachelor, 
but was very unfortunate in his financial aftairs, and died in pov- 
erty, his only income being from the postoffice, which he received 
for his loyal party services. He died some eight years ago. 

Harrison Gwinn, of Green Sulphur Springs, has been engaged 
in the lumber business for many years, as also the stave business, 
successfully. D. M. Meador is now one of the largest lumber and 
stave manufacturers, with headquarters at Hinton. 

The Lilly Lumber Company, a corporation, was organized by 
T. H. Lilly, the lumberman. He opened business in Hinton about 
1901, becoming very successful. He does a wholesale and jobbing 
business, with a yard at Hinton, and mills on the Greenbrier 
Branch of the C. & O. Railway. His corporation was organized 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 785 

with a maximum capital stock of $100,000, his brother, Everett 
Lilly, being treasurer; T. H. Lilly, president; H. Ewart, Jas. H. 
Miller, J. M. Godfrey (vice-president), A. G. Flanagan (secre- 
tary), D. M. Meador, Martin Hill, Jr., Everett Lilly, R. H. Max- 
well and F. B. Kidd being directors. They ship to the foreign 
markets; also to the local business. 

Kidd & Kirby have been maufacturing extensively in this 
county for the last few years. W. R. Best has been manufactur- 
ing in the Jumping Branch District, on the Davis lands, on Mad- 
am's Creek. 

B. B. Burks is one of the oldest lumbermen in the county, 
having begun operations as early as 1873. He is from Ashland, 
Kentucky, and is now residing in Florida. He first began opera- 
tions at the mouth of Bluestone, on Tallery Mountain. R. H. 
Maxwell was also one of the pioneer lumber and stave men, along 
with R. M. Commack, of Cleveland, Ohio. He did a large busi- 
ness in this county at one time. William James & Sons began 
operations directly after the formation of the county, locating 
their mills on the pond in Avis, acquiring seven acres of ground, 
and utilizing the pond for storing logs and boom purposes. They 
still operate large saw and planing mills in the city of Avis, and 
have done so continuously since the founding of the business by 
William James. John P. Mills was another of the pioneer lum- 
ber manufacturers in Hinton. He was a New Yorker, and built 
a large steam mill below the Hinton ferry. He erected a hand- 
some residence, which was destroyed by the flood of '78, and his 
mill greatly damaged. Daniel F. Mohler was one of the first tim- 
ber men to operate on a large scale. He was at the mouth of 
Griffith's Creek— "Mohler's Switch"— in 1880, and made consid- 
erable money at the business. 

In the early days great quantities of staves and lumber were 
floated down the New River in batteaus by Captain Thomas 
Quinn, the Irish boatman. He married a Farley, of Pipestem, 
and his two sons still reside in that district, Fowler and Miller, 
Mike being killed in a railway accident with John Flanagan, in 
1906. He was a fireman on the railway. Squire Homer Ballen- 
ger, of Talcott, is also engaged in the lumber business at this 
date. Welder & Son, of Forest Hill District, enterprising saw- 
mill men and stave manufacturers, have been doing business in 
the region of Forest Hill and Barger Springs for a number of 
years. Green L. Scott and J. D. Scott, his brother, have been en- 
gaged in the lumbering manufacturing business for several years 



786 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



successfully in Talcott District. Captain Mark M. Miller came to 
the county with its formation, and began the lumber manufac- 
turing business, having his mills in Jumping Branch and Green- 
brier Districts, and Hinton. J. S. Kellogg, a New Yorker, oper- 
ated on Big Creek extensively for a number of years. A. J. Mil- 
ler and his son Cornelius, who now lives in Talcott District, op- 
erated on Big Creek for a number of years, on the John Buckland 
property. In 1904 Evans & Company, of Michigan, purchased 
the timber on the Dr. Barksdale property, near Brooks — three 
thousand acres — and have been removing the same since. Dr. 
Barksdale, about 1885, operated at Barksdale Station, near Brooks, 
extensively in the manufacture of lumber. The timber from the 
Schermerhorn tract was largely removed by Crosby, Bodman and 
others, a good many years ago. John M. Holland, an old citizen 
of Green Sulphur District, a native of Franklin County, Virginia, 
and an enterprising and an honest man, whose family now reside 
in that country, operated a lumber business for a number of years 
in the Lick Creek country and also in Pipestem. wmere he was 
operating at the time of his death. 

The first man to engage in the walnut timber business in the 
county was Sam Smith, of Ohio. He came into the Lick Creek 
country immediately after the construction of the railroad, about 
1874, and purchased large quantities of the finest walnut timber 
in any country, which he undertook to get out and ship to foreign 
markets, but managed his affairs badly, secured the people's wal- 
nut timber and failed. This walnut timber was originallv pur- 
chased and gotten out by Dr. Samuel Williams, for Dr. Richard 
P. Lake, the average price paid being one dollar per tree. Dr. 
Lake was at one time chief surgeon for the C. & O. Railway Co., 
and a very celebrated man in his profession. I. N. Johnson oper- 
ated in the timber business at one time on the head of Lick Creek, 
but did not succeed, as did a great many of the pioneer timber 
men. 

One of the most celebrated suits tried in the county was con- 
cerning a lot of staves manufactured by R. H. Maxwell, on the 
lands of Joseph Thompson, in the upper Lick Creek country. 
Maxwell manufactured his staves, but Thompson refused to per- 
mit him to remove them out off his land, and Maxwell sued him 
for damages, recovering a judgment for $500, and instituting a 
chancery proceeding to enforce the same, and the matters were 
litigated for ten years, the lands of Thompson being finally sold 
to satisfy Maxwell's judgment. It was one of the most hotly con- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



787 



tested cases ever litigated in the county, and is known generally 
as the Thompson-Mexwell-Locker case. A large part of the land 
undertaken to be sold was claimed by H. S. Locker, of Lexington, 
Virginia, the father-in-law of Joseph Thompson, who was the 
son of Captain James Thompson, and Locker succeeded in hold- 
ing his property, which was known as the old Robert Gore tract 
of some eight or nine hundred acres. Maxwell was generally suc- 
cessful, however, in the litigation. 

A. E. Miller and W. N. McNeer lumbered extensively at one 
time on Lick Creek; also, J. W. Alderson and W. B. Dean, and 
the Dean Lumber Company, which was composed of Dr. Fletcher 
Dean and William Ballard Dean, sons of George W. Dean. 

The timber business, however, is about terminated in the ter- 
ritory of this county. The valuable forests have been cut and re- 
moved, and the timber industry is practically at an end within 
the territory of Summers County. 

William James & Son first began the floating of timber down 
New River, being the pioneers of the boom business, having con- 
structed a large dam and boom across Bluestone River near its 
mouth, also a dam-up at the mouth of Little Bluestone; another 
dam at J. W. Pack's, at the mouth of Leatherwood, and one at 
their mills in Avis, in Upper Hinton. 

The Commonwealth Lumber Company, now operating on Grif- 
fith's Creek and Keeney's Knob, is a corporation composed of 
Pennsylvania capitalists. It has erected a bridge across Green- 
brier River at the mouth of the creek, and built a broad-gauge 
railroad to the top of the Keeney's Knob, eight miles, where they 
own the old Jos. Jarrett 3,000 acres of land. They have built up a 
village of fifty houses near the site of the old fort. The Wm. James 
Sons' Co. during the winter — the dry season — would prepare a large 
run of logs, containing many hundred thousands of feet ; then, when 
the floods came, run them down to their booms, and finally to their 
mill. When the floods came there would be a great rush and demand 
for laborers to save the logs, and also to make the run. As an 
instance, at one flood in recent years, among the laborers engaged 
in securing the logs were two preachers, one justice of the peace, 
one constable, one doctor and one president of a coal company, 
all engaged in driving these logs, as laborers. If the boom broke, 
or it was an extraordinarily high flood, many logs would escape 
down the river, probably being caught in the Kanawha, or going 
on out into the Ohio. Their boom at Avis was near where the 
concrete breakwater was built in 1906, by William H. Charlton, 



788 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

a contractor, to turn the floods into the rivers, and prevent the 
overflowing of the upper town. A. E. & C. L. Miller at one time 
did a considerable lumber business in the upper Lick Creek coun- 
try. Price & Heald are also in the lumber business at Hinton, 
with offices in the Ewart-Miller Building. 

There has also been a large planing mill and lumber business 
done at New Richmond in the last ten years. The business was 
originated by John W. Graham, who established and built a large 
manufacturing building, which still stands. The planing mill busi- 
ness was established by Oscar Honaker, later succeeded by the 
T. H. Lilly Lumber Company, and now by a corporation of which 
Otho Graham is general manager; J. A. Graham, Wm. W. War- 
ren, L. P. Graham and others, are stockholders, and James Gwinn, 
president. 

"Squire" Chas. H. Graham is still engaged in the lumber manu- 
facturing business in the county, at Brooks, as is his son Otho, 
at New Richmond and David Graham Ballangee, at Clayton. 

TWO MURDERS. 

Page Edwards killed his wife in April, 1878, and Hugh J. Wil- 
burn killed George W. Farley on the same day. Page Edwards 
was a negro living at the east portal of the Big Bend Tunnel. 
His wife was a bright mulatto woman of handsome appearance. 
She was standing in the cabin door, holding a child in her arms, 
when Edwards shot her with a shotgun filled with buckshot. 
Strange to say, the woman was killed, but the child was unhurt. 
Edwards was jealous of his wife. He was tried for murder in the 
Summers Circuit Court at the term following, was found guilty 
and sentenced to life confinement in the penitentiary, where he 
died. He was defended by Mark Jarrett, a descendant of the pio- 
neer settler of that name in the Muddy Creek country. He was 
an orator of wide reputation, and a graduate of Roanoke College. 
His speech was said by those who heard it to have been one of 
the finest pieces of oratory ever delivered in Summers County. 
He married Miss Lula J. Garst, of Salem, Va. He afterwards 
died in the West, and his widow married John H. Clay, of Alder- 
son. Mark Jarrett left one son, Mark Jarrett, Jr., who has re- 
cently completed a course at law in the University of Virginia. 

Hugh J. Wilburn was a quiet, peaceable citizen residing in 
Pipestem District, and a descendant of the ancient Wilburns of 
the Middle New River settlements. George W. Farley was a de- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



789 



scendant of the old Farley ancestors of Pipestem District. He 
was in the habit of visiting Wilburn's residence in his absence, of 
which Wilburn learned. Wilburn went to his house one morning, 
and called Farley out, who started to run. Wilburn carried a 
double-barreled shotgun, and immediately shot one load into his 
body. As he started to fall he fired the second shot, but, as Farley 
was falling, that discharge missed him. Wilburn then took out 
his revolver, walked up to Farley, shot him in the head, and killed 
him instantly. Wilburn made his escape, and was followed by 
Green Lee Lilly, the deputy sheriff ; but he was never captured 
and never tried, and has been a wanderer from this land from 
that date. 

GRAHAM vs. GRAHAM. 

One of the noted cases between residents within our territory 
was that of Graham vs. Graham. It was brought at November 
Rules, 1859, in Monroe Circuit Court. 

Colonel James Graham made his will in 1812, by which he made 
a devise as follows : "I give unto my daughter, Rebekah Gra- 
ham, and her children, that plantation where she now lives, known 
as the "Stevenson's Cabin" (Stinson). Also, I give unto her and 
her children my negro girl named Dinah, the land and the negro 
never to be disposed of out of the family, nor the increase of the 
negro, if any she has." And later on he further provided : "All 
of the before-mentioned legacies thus bequeathed to my children, 
I give unto them and their heirs forever, according to the way 
they are stated." Rebekah was the daughter of James and the 
wife of Joseph Graham. "All the foregoing legacies I give to 
them and their heirs forever, according to the way they are 
stated." 

The suit was for the partition of the plantation into five parts, 
and the division of the proceeds of the sale of the negroes into 
five parts. Rebekah (Rebecca) claimed that under the provisions 
of the will quoted, she took in fee simple absolute. On the 25th 
of May, 1869, the circuit court decreed a partition of the land into 
five parts — one to Rebecca and the residue to the four children, 
including the daughter of the one deceased — and by Rebecca four- 
fifths of the price Dinah had brought, to be paid to the children, 
arising from the sale of the two negro slaves, the increase of 
Dinah, and also their hire. 

This was the suit of Rebecca Graham et al. vs. Lanty Graham 
et al. 



790 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



This decree, which was rendered by Judge Nat. Harrison, was 
appealed from to the Supreme Court of Appeals of West Virginia, 
which court reversed the circuit court, and held that Rebecca Gra- 
ham was entitled to the whole of the real estate, and . also of the 
proceeds of the funds arising from the sale of the negro slaves.. 

Hon. Allen T. Caperton and Hon. Frank Hereford, of Union, 
Avere the attorneys for Rebecca Graham, who was the widow of 
Joseph Graham and a daughter of Colonel James Graham, and ex- 
Governor Samuel Price was the attorney for the defendants, the 
children. This was concerning lands at Clayton Postoffice. (See 
West Virginia Supreme Court Reports, Vol. 4, page 320.) 

A second suit growing out of the same will was tried in the 
Monroe Circuit Court, the decree appealed to the Supreme Court 
of Appeals, and decided by it May 1, 1887. 

The will of James Graham above referred to, as stated, gave 
to said Rebecca the slave Dinah, who had two children, Ira and 
-Stuart. At the death of the said James Graham, said Rebecca was 
the mother of four children, and others were born after his death 
and before the death of Joseph, who died about 1860. 

The court in this case held that the slave Dinah passed to 
the husband by reason of his marital rights under the laws then 
existing, and that not only Dinah, but her increase, Ira and Stu- 
art, were the property of Joseph Graham, and not his wife, to 
whom they were by the will bequeathed, and after the death of 
Joseph they went to the widow and children equally. 

On the 9th of March, 1868, the said widow, Rebecca, John Gra- 
ham, James Graham, David Graham and David G. Ballengee exe- 
cuted an agreement by which said Rebecca conveys to the others 
all of her estate by reason of the last will of James Graham, de- 
ceased, they to support her during her life, and they were to pay 
all the costs of a suit brought by another son, Lanty, and others, 
for which she might be liable, and they agreed to go her security 
to carry said former case to the Supreme Court. 

The two negroes, increase of Dinah, were sold for $2,000, by 
Rebecca — $1,000 each — and the proceeds she invested in a debt 
against Arbuckle, which she assigned to her son, David Graham. 
Joseph Graham made no will disposing of his property in said 
slaves, and this suit was brought by John Graham, David Graham 
and David G. Ballengee (a grandson), against said Rebecca Gra- 
ham and said James Graham, for the specific execution of said 
agreement, claiming that the said Dinah and her increase and the 
proceeds of their sale invested in the Arbuckle claim were included 



GREENBRIER SPRINGS HOTEL. 1905. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



791 



in the agreement above mentioned of the 9th of March, 1868, and 
said same will devised to said Rebekah a tract of 286 acres of 
land, on which said Joseph Graham and his wife, Rebekah, then 
resided. 

The Supreme Court held that the agreement of March 9, 1868, 
did not embrace or include the said slaves or either of them, or 
the $2,000 proceeds of sale thereof, or the said Arbuckle claim, 
and that said Joseph Graham held said tract of land by the cur- 
tesy during his life, and at his death Rebecca took in fee simple 
to the whole thereof, and passed under the agreement of the 9th 
of March, 1868, to said John, David and James Graham and D. G. 
Ballengee. 

The decree appealed from was rendered by the circuit court of 
Monroe County, May 23, 1873. The style was John Graham, 
Plfr*., vs. James Graham, Rebecca Graham and others, Defts. 

Judge Homer A. Holt was the circuit judge rendering the de- 
cision appealed from, and which was reversed. 

The attorney for the appellants was Samuel Price, and for the 
appellees, Frank Hereford. 

The opinion of the court is very lengthy, covering thirty-one 
printed pages. 

The suit was begun in January, 1871. The decree was ren- 
dered by the circuit court May 23, 1873. The decree being ad- 
verse to James Graham, he appealed, and the decree of the circuit 
court was reversed. 

In this suit the reputation of James T. Dempsey was attacked 
and proven bad for truth and veracity, a number of witnesses 
swearing it to be bad. A number of others swore it was good, 
and that they would believe him on oath. 

James Graham recovered his costs from John, David and Bal- 
lengee. (See 10 W. Va. Reports, page 355 ; 4 W. Va. Reports, 
page 320.) 

CARNES CASE. 

On October 12, 1890, a suit in chancery was instituted by Lo- 
gan & Patton, attorneys-at-law of Union, for K. S. Karnes, the 
descendants and heirs of Matthew Kincaid, as plaintiffs, against 
all of the lot-owners and others of the town of Talcott, as well as 
the Chesapeake & Ohio Railway, claiming each and all of the lots 
in that town, as well as the right of way of the railway company 
through the Matthew Kincaid tract of land. It seems that this 



792 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



tract along Greenbrier River, from Hungart's Creek, of several 
hundred acres, had been sold many years ago to Griffith Meadows, 
now a very old man, and who was at one time a justice of the peace 
of Talcott District, and to Sarah Woodson, the wife of Zachariah 
Woodson, who lived in the log mansion at the mouth of Hun- 
gart's Creek. The purchasers thought they were gettting a title 
in fee simple, but after many years it was ascertained by the 
heirs of the wife of Kincaid, who were the Karns, of Monroe and 
Mercer, that the land belonged in fee to the wife of Kincaid; that 
she did not join in the deeds of conveyance by him to Woodson 
and Meadows, and therefore they only took thereunder the title 
of Kincaid, which was a life estate. His wife having died and not 
having conveyed him any of her title, he only took by the curtesy, 
which gave Meadows and Woodson a title good only so long as 
Kincaid lived. He lived to be a very old man, and finally died 
a short time before this suit was instituted ; and thus the heirs of 
Kincaid came into the ''remainder" at his death, and employed 
the said counsel to secure the possession, the attorneys to have 
one-third of the recovery. The citizens of Talcott, led by W. W. 
Jones, Esq., and Hon. M. A. Manning, determined to defend their 
title to the uttermost. They employed Mr. Manning and Miller 
& Read, a law firm, to protect their interests. 

The land had been cut up into lots on the completion of and 
before the railway, and many conveyances had been made from 
one to another; the lots had been built on, good dwellings and 
improvements, and the thrifty little town of three hundred souls 
inhabited the property. By this suit, if the plaintiffs won, they 
would take the land, with all the improvements, .and place a great 
number of honest people out of house and home, as their entire 
earthly possessions were invested in these homes. 

Mr. Manning took charge of the legal end of the fight, and a 
Committee of Safety was organized, consisting of W. W. Jones, 
Dr. J. W. Ford and Mr. Manning, to finance the fight. 

The case came on February 9, 1900, and delays were inter- 
posed, and amendments to the plaintiff's pleading required, T. N. 
Read having direct charge of the active legal defense, which he 
most faithfully and intelligently conducted. Finally, after some 
two years, the court, Judge McWhorter, pronounced its opinion, 
by which the rights of the parties were defined, which was in ef- 
fect that the plaintiffs were entitled to an undivided one-ninth 
interest in the tract of land, and entitled to a partition, if an 
equitable partition could be made, giving them their interest in 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 793 



unimproved land in value, if this could be done, and giving the 
Talcott citizens their lots and improvements. It was ascertained 
that there was a part of the Woodson tract which was unimproved. 
The court appointed by its decision commissioners to make this 
partition, if it could be done ; Messrs. James A. Graham, Harrison 
Gwinn, John E. Harvey, Chas. A. Baber and Rev. Henry Dillon 
as commissioners to go on the ground and report, and this they 
did, assigning to the plaintiffs forty acres of unimproved land. 
This report was by the court confirmed. The citizens then, through 
the committee, Messrs. Jones and four others — Mr. Manning hav- 
ing died during the pendency of this suit — raised the money and 
bought this land from the plaintiffs for $600, and had it reconveyed 
to the heirs of Mrs. Woodson, paid the costs and saved their prop- 
erty and homes. The whole cost, including their attorney's fees, 
costs of property, and costs of suit being about $1,400, of which 
each lot-owner paid his part, or was supposed to do so. This 
final settlement was placed in the hands of Mr. William W. Jones, 
who closed out the matter with the most scrupulous integrity and 
with great intelligence, and to whom all of those people should 
owe a lasting gratitude. It was a fortunate ending to what looked 
at one time like a great disaster. Had the plaintiffs succeeded, 
they would have taken the Manning residence, the C. & O. depot. 
Dr. Ford's residence, Mr. Jones' storehouse and residence, the 
Baptist and Methodist churches, Masonic Lodge, and all of the 
improvements and houses of the happy people of Talcott. 

The plaintiffs, the Games', realized about $800, their attorneys 
for their services receiving one-third. 

There are two white churches in Talcott — one Missionary Bap- 
tist and one Southern Methodist — and a Masonic Lodge. 

There is one colored church in the town, and one white and 
one colored free school. 

They are a thriving, industrious and intelligent people. 

There are four general stores, a millinery store, two hotels, one 
conducted by E. P. Huston, and the "Valley View Hotel," con- 
ducted by John Willy, completed in 1906, a very creditable prop- 
erty of thirty rooms, costing some $6,000. 

It is the C. & O. station for the Red Sulphur Springs, Green- 
brier Springs, and Lindeman Springs, on Stony Creek. 

The first C. & O. depot agent at Talcott was a Mr. Lacey, who 
after a few years was transferred to Lowell, and Mr. E. P. Huston 
substituted. Mr. Huston is the oldest station agent in the county, 
and has been faithfully filling the position for the past thirty years. 



794 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



He was postmaster for four years under Cleveland, president of 
the Board of Education, and is one of the public-spirited, old- 
time Virginia gentlemen of the place. He was a brave and gal- 
lant soldier throughout the Civil War in the Confederate Army. 
His son, Elbert, is a trusted telegraph operator, and owns one- 
half of the old Chas. K. Rollyson place on the top of the Big Bend 
Tunnel, one of the shafts operated in its construction being on 
this land. 

The Talcott Toll Bridge stands in the town of Talcott, at the 
old Maddy Ferry. 

HISTORY AND CONFESSION OF W. I. MARTIN. 

The crime of W. I. Martin was committed immediately, across 
New River from Hinton, at the landing on the Raleigh side of the 
Lower Ferry. The incident relates to Summers County history, 
and we give it in detail. After his trial and sentence to death, 
some time before the date set for his hanging, he made a detailed 
confession, which was written in his cell in long hand and signed 
by Martin in his own hand. Martin's relatives were respectable 
people. His father died recently m this county. He made every 
effort within his power to secure commutation of the sentence. 
J. R. Armstrong, one of the officers who went to Big Stone Gap 
and returned the prisoner to Raleigh County, was at that time the 
sergeant of the town of Hinton, and was afterwards shot to death 
by Brown 'Pack. 

W. I. Martin murdered his wife in Brooklyn, Raleigh County, 
West Virginia, in October, 1887, and was arrested at Big Stone 
Gap, Wise County, Virginia, by Detective W. J. McMahan, and 
held by him until R. W r . Lilly, who held a requisition from Gov- 
ernor E. W. Wilson, of this State, could reach him. Mr. Lilly, 
assisted by J. R. Armstrong, delivered Martin over to the authori- 
ties of Raleigh County, on Monday, the 19th day of January, 1890. 
He was tried at the July term, 1890, before Judge R. C. Mc- 
Claugherty, and sentenced to be hanged October 3, 1890. While 
he confessed doing the killing before his trial, no authentic state- 
ment of the foul and brutal murder has ever been given the pub- 
lic but the statement given below, written by Martin himself. 

The Confession. 

"I shall now give a short sketch of my life. I was born in 
Floyd County, Virginia, in 1858. I was raised in the beautiful 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY,. WEST VIRGINIA. 795 



and picturesque Allegheny Mountains. I lived there until I was 
twenty-five years old, and moved to West Virginia in 1883. In 
1884 I moved to Hinton, Summers County. In 1886 I married 
Ann Brown. Owing to my illiteracy, I will not give a history of 
my early life. I will commence from the time I came to this 
State, and give only a sketch of my trouble after I was married. 
I had always been a hard-working, sober, peaceful and quiet man 
until I came to the realization of the fact that I had married a vile 
woman. Being the husband of a woman of this character caused 
me a great deal of trouble. I considered it the downfall of myself 
and children. The fact that I had married a woman of that char- 
acter caused me much trouble, and finally I took to drinking, 
thinking to drown my mortification and shame ; but it did not suc- 
ceed. It led to much trouble. My wife was not true to me, and 
besides, she was very high-tempered and abusive to me. In spite 
of all I could do she became worse to me and harder to please. 
Finally, she got to dividing her attentions between other men and 
myself. In the fall some men came to my house on account of 
her, and abused me, and tried to get me to do or to say something 
to give them a chance to shoot me. She had frequently taken rides 
with those men, and afterwards they said she was the cause of it, 
and they had nothing against me. After this I saw it was danger- 
ous to live with her, and we parted, she going to Fayette County 
at my expense. After she had been there two or three months 
she wrote me to bring or send her some money, and I sent her 
money two or three different times, and also went to see her. 
She soon got tired of that place, and wrote to me to send her some 
money so she could come back to Hinton. She said she could not 
nor would not live without me any longer, and if I did not send 
her money, she would come if she had to walk. I sent her money, 
and she came back and lived with me two or three weeks, and 
left. Her excuse for it was that she would not live with my peo- 
ple, or where they lived. She then came across the river opposite 
Hinton, in Raleigh County, and rented one room in a house that 
Bud Galloway lived in. After she had rented this room she wrote 
to me to come and bring her things. After I had received her let- 
ter I went to see her. I asked her what she was going to do, and 
how she was going to get along. She said she did not know, un- 
less I helped her, or would come and live with her. I told her I 
thought she was giving me poor encouragement to do anything, 
but that she knew I would do anything I possibly could for her, 
and always had, if she would only do right. The way she talked, 



796 HISTORY GF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



I thought she was about whipped out running around, and the 
promises she made me led me to believe that she was going to do 
better. After we had concluded to live together everything moved 
along smoothly until two or three days previous to that unfortu- 
nate trouble. A man came to the door and knocked one night 
two or three days before the trouble. When he knocked I was 
sitting and she was standing before the fire. When he knocked 
she darted to the door and opened it a very little and looked out. 
The man at the door gave it a violent shove ; it staggered my wife 
back, but she held to it. When he had thus pushed the door open, 
he asked her where her eldest boy was ; she told him he was at 
the watch-house, and he walked away. The boy he had inquired 
for had just set him across the river. I knew there was something 
wrong by his actions. The only thing I said was, 'Who is that?' 
After that there was a considerable change in her treatment to me. 
The next day she took my revolver and hid it. When I missed it, 
I asked for it, and her answer was, 'You have got to quit carrying 
revolvers,' and she would not give it to me. 

"She had never done anything of this kind before. I had car- 
ried a revolver almost constantly since we had the trouble in the 
spring. The day my wife was killed I went up on the mountain 
to work, and, as well as I remember, I started home about three 
o'clock. I came by my sister's, and she told me she had heard 
that there was some fellows coming to my house to run me off. 
At the time she was telling me I thought very little of it and only 
said, 'Let them come.' I went on down to Hinton and got to drink- 
ing a little. I commenced to think of those things my sister had 
told me, and I thought I might meet with some danger at any 
time. I went to Air. Burke Prince's store and bought me a re- 
volver. I thought if any one came to my house I would not run, 
for I had done nothing to run for. I knew there was a change in 
my wife, and if any trouble come up she would be the cause of it. 
and for this reason she had been too intimate with other men. 
When I went home I had no idea of shooting her, although I was 
greatly aggravated over the trouble she had caused me after the 
promise she had made. While in Hinton I bought some goods 
and a pint of whiskey. It was about sundown when I reached 
home, and I was about half drunk. I also bought a pair of shoes 
for myself. After the family had ate their supper my wife came 
into the room and began to grumble about me not getting her a 
pair of shoes. I told her that I did not know that she wanted a 
pair, but if I had known it I would have gotten them for her. As 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



797 



soon as supper was over her oldest boy walked off. I did not 
say anything in regard to what I had heard about the parties com- 
ing there to run me off, but I walked out of the house to look 
after the boy. I stood in the yard a few minutes, but did not see 
any one, but I heard talking down at the ferry. I went back into 
the house after drinking at least one half pint of whiskey. I sat 
down, and she commenced to quarrel about the shoes. I sat there 
and listened at her and also listened for some one to slip in and 
commence shooting at me at any minute. I thought she had given 
my revolver to some one to shoot me with. I did not say much 
to her, anyway. I was standing before the fire and so was she 
when she said, 'If you can't get what I want, there is a man that 
can, and he shall do it, too.' When she said this I thought of my 
condition. I had broken myself up trying to please her, and all the 
time I was expecting to be shot at any minute on account of her. 
I don't know what kind of a condition I did get into. I flew into 
a mad fit, and, taking my revolver from my pocket, I fired at her. 
I was standing in about six feet of her when I shot. When I shot 
she went towards the room Mr. Galloway stayed in, and I went 
out of the back door. It was all done in a flash. I did not know 
whether the shot struck her or not or how bad she was hurt, or 
anything about it, until the next day. I came back to the house in 
the course of the night, and when I stepped in the door I realized 
I did not want to see my wife, and I walked off about fifty yards 
from the house and stopped. I heard at least a half a dozen men 
talking just a few steps from the house, and I was afraid to go 
back to the house any more. 

"The next morning about nine o'clock I went to my sister's, and 
she met me in the yard and told me that there had been some men 
there looking for me, and they had said I had killed my wife and 
left. I was greatly surprised to hear that she was dead. When 
she told me of it, if I had had a million dollars I would have given 
it if I could have recalled that fatal shot. I knew it would not do 
for me to stay there. I left the country. I was in Virginia and 
Tennessee until arrested. 

"In conclusion, I want to say that I hope my sad fate will be 
a warning to all that wish to live a happy life, to beware of bad 
women and whiskey. I want to thank the jailer, Mr. Hawley, and 
the guards, Frank Godby and Wm. E. George, £or the kindness 
they have shown me while in jail. 

"(Signed): W. I. MARTIN." 



798 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 

Martin was prosecuted by Hon. A. P. Farley, prosecuting at- 
torney of Raleigh County, and Gen. J. W. St. Clair, of Fayette- 
ville, and defended by Hon. William R. Thompson, of Summers. 
Judge R. C. McClaugherty was the trial judge. At his execution, 
which was public, there were five or six thousand people to witness 
it from the county and adjoining counties. 

A. P. Farley, who prosecuted Martin, is a native of Summers 
County, born February 2, 1861, in Pipestem, then Mercer County; 
educated in the public schools, and graduated from Concord Nor- 
mal School in 1881. He taught school in Summers, Raleigh and 
Greenbrier. Was first elected prosecuting attorney of Raleigh 
County in 1888, and again in 1896, and filled that important position 
for two terms of four years each. He is one of the ablest lawyers 
at the Raleigh Bar. On October 16, 1889, he married Miss Alice 
Atkinson, daughter of the railroad builder of the Greenbrier White 
Sulphur Springs. He is the son of Mr. Henderson Farley, who a 
few years ago removed from this county to the West. He has two 
brothers in Missouri, Albert C. and W. U., both teachers, and is 
one of the descendants of the family of Farleys who first settled 
the Pipestem country and were Indian fighters in the early days. 

JONATHAN F. LILLY CASE. 

Jonathan F. Lilly was a prominent man in affairs and resided 
in Jumping Branch District on the Bluestone Hills. He was about 
thirty years of age and married a daughter of '"Miller" Bob Lilly, 
and was the father of seven young children. At the time of which 
we write he was teaching one of the public schools in his neigh- 
borhood, was a farmer and teacher by occupation, and had served 
one term as superintendent of free schools of this county. 

His brother-in-law, Thomas S. Meador, lived in the neighbor- 
hood, and had become jealous of Lilly. On the 18th day of Oc- 
tober, 1893, he loaded his shotgun, went into the upper story of 
his house and took his position to keep an outlook through a crack 
under the eaves. In the evening Mr. Lilly came by from his school, 
and, on coming up the path, directly into Meador's house, Meador 
fired his gun from his hiding-place, killing Lilly instantly. 

Meador came to the prosecuting attorney's office in Hinton, 
stating that he desired to surrender himself, and telling what he 
had done. He was placed in jail and an indictment was preferred 
at the following term of court, and on the fourth day of May, 1894, 
his case came on for trial, Hon. A. N. Campbell presiding as judge. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



799 



He was prosecuted by Adams & Miller, prosecutors, assisted by 
Col. James W. Davis, who was employed by Mr. D. G. Lilly, a 
brother-in-law of the deceased. The trial lasted three whole days. 
A view of the premises where the killing occurred was demanded, 
which was a distance of twelve miles from the court house. The 
judge, jury, sheriff, clerk, attorneys and prisoner were all conveyed, 
going in hacks, buggies and on horseback to the scene of the 
tragedy on the mountains beyond Little Bluestone. After viewing 
the premises the trial was completed, and the accused acquitted. 
This was one of the most interesting and hard-fought legal matters 
that even took place in the courts. Thomas Meador, the accused, 
still resides in the county with his family, near the mouth of Little 
Bluestone, and is one of the descendants of Josiah Meador, the 
first known of that numerous family of that name in the county, 
his wife, as well as the deceased, being descendants of Robert 
Lilly, the founder of the great family of that name in these parts. 

The jury which tried and acquitted Meador were: Granger Hol- 
stine, W. R. Boyd, Daniel Gwinn, O. P. Jameson, R. T. Grady, 
Allen F. Brown, M. N. Breen, W. E. Carden, W. R. Taylor, S. W. 
Owen, J. H. Allen and R. M. Martin. 

KILLING OF T. P. WITHROW. 

Theodore P. Withrow was a constable of Green Sulphur Dis- 
trict elected in 1904, and a very good and efficient officer. On the 
26th day of August, 1907, Frank Clark, a son of Alex. H. 
Clark and a grandson of George W. Dean, who was a brakeman on 
the C. & O. Railway, was at Sandstone to see a woman by the 
name of Ward, and was drinking. He was twenty-two years of 
age. He was not behaving very well, and some of the citizens 
requested the constable, Withrow, to stop the misbehavior. With- 
row got off his wagon, went to where Clark was and requested 
him in a vigorous manner to stop his misconduct and go away, 
taking hold of him. Clark at once retreated and pulled out a pistol 
and began firing into the body of the officer, shooting him five 
times. He died the next day from the wounds. Clark was arrested 
and lodged in jail at Hinton and sent on to answer an indictment 
for murder. He denied that he did the killing at first. At the 
October Term, 1907, he was indicted for murder. He was defended 
by Messrs. T. G. Mann, W. H. Sawyers and J. A. Meadows, and 
prosecuted by T. N. Read and R. F. Dunlap. His father and 
mother both died when he was an infant. He was a bad boy, 



800 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



with a kind heart, and had served a term in the reform school at 
Pruntytown. Withrow had also served a term in the reform school 
at Pruntytown. Both were grown men, raised up in the same 
neighborhood. Clark was twenty-two years old, a slim, pale 
youth with red hair. The first trial came on the 16th day of Oc- 
tober, 1907. The regular judge of the court, having been guardian 
for the boy, declined to sit at the hearing of the case, and A. R. 
Heflin, a practicing attorney at the bar of the county, was agreed 
upon to sit as special judge. On the 16th Clark made his plea in 
person of "not guilty." The following were the jurors who tried 
the case: 

1. C. C. Coulter; 2. Albert H. Mann; 3. J. A. Bostic ; 4. A. J. 
Williams; 5. H. W. Flanagan; 6. J. A. Allen; 7. A. E. Welder; 8. 
J. P. Keaton; 9. A. J. Martin; 10. Taylor Reed; 11. Francis Buck- 
land; 12. C. D. Albert. 

The evidence was concluded on the evening of the 18th. The 
instructions offered on the part of the defendant were very volu- 
minous, numbering thirty-five, all of which were not given, how- 
ever. The arguments of counsel began at seven o'clock p. m. t 
R. F. Dunlap opening for the State, and was followed by Messrs. 
Mann, Sawyers and Meadows for the defendant. The State's 
case was closed by T. N. Read at twelve o'clock on the 20th. The 
jury was out five hours, failed to agree, and were discharged. A 
second trial of the case was set for the January Term, 1908. 

Alex. H. Clark, the father of this young man, was a native of 
Augusta County, Virginia, and one of the descendants of Patrick 
Miller. He married a Miss Dean, daughter of George W. Dean, 
of Lick Creek. At the opening of the Oklahoma Territory for 
settlement, fourteen years ago, he went to that country, took the 
typhoid fever and died. His wife died some two years afterward, 
leaving Frank Clark, the defendant in the above named trial, and 
Lena, a sister younger than Frank. This is one of the most un- 
fortunate homicides ever occurring in the county. The people 
connected with both sides were good people. Frank Clark is a 
youth, and, while his crime is grave, there is a disposition to be- 
lieve, on the part of many, that there was no malice in the killing. 
He had not seen Withrow for nine years. 

This case came on again to be tried at the January Term, 1908, 
before A. R. Heflin, as special judge, elected by the bar to try it. 
The same attorneys were retained as those who tried the case at 
a former term, except the defendant associated additional counsel 
in the person of Hon. Charles W. Osenton, a learned lawyer of 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNT Y, WEST VIRGINIA. 801 



Fayetteville, who took charge of the case as counsel in chief. The 
case was on trial for three days, and the jury finally returned its 
verdict about one o'clock, having been out nearly two hours, bring- 
ing in a verdict of "We, the jury, find the defendant not guilty of 
murder in the first degree, as charged in the within indictment, but 
we do find him guilty of murder in the second degree, as therein 
charged." A motion to set aside the verdict and grant a new 
trial was strenuously pressed by the prisoner's counsel, but was 
overruled, and a sentence of twelve years' confinement in the peni- 
tentiary imposed. The maximum punishment which could have 
been imposed was eighteen years. It clearly developed in the trial 
that it was not a case of cold-blooded, premeditated, malicous mur- 
der, but grew out of an altercation at the time, and while the 
court construed it to be a technical homicide of the second degree, 
it was conceded that elements of previous premeditation were ab- 
sent, and public sentiment had changed much in regard to the 
character of the offense. Many exceptions were taken to the 
rulings of the court, and the accused determined to appeal to the 
Supreme Court and have the lower court proceedings reviewed, 
and at this time counsel are preparing bills of exceptions, with a 
view to an appeal. 



CALES vs. MILLER. 

On the 29th day of February, 1848, John Miller, son of Robert, 
and Joel McPherson brought a complaint before a justice of the 
peace of Greenbrier County against James Cales, that he had un- 
lawfully ousted them from out of possession of a certain cabin 
tenement containing forty acres, on the end of Chestnut Mountain, 
part of a tract of 1,100 acres. The trial came on March 18, 1848, 
but was continued to June, 1849. The plaintiff introduced a deed 
from Jacob Maddy to John Miller made in 1846, $40.00, which was 
the consideration for one-half of said 1,100 acres, which was on 
New River and its waters on Chestnut Mountain. A decree was 
accepted in evidence of Richard Thomas and Jacob Maddy against 
Samuel Pack, made in 1842, and under this decree Jacob Maddy 
and Joel McPherson were adjudged the owners, the decree being 
against Samuel Pack for the purchase money. The patent to the 
land was also introduced, showing a grant to Davis Martin for 
this land, bearing date March 15, 1798, who was a resident of Wil- 
mington, Delaware, and he had made deed to John Martin, of 
Philadelphia, conveying the 1,100 acre tract. A patent was also 



802 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



introduced from the commonwealth to Miller and McPherson for 
the 1,100 acres, dated February 29, 1848. It was also charged that 
the old Long Bottom on New River, just above the falls, had been 
in the possession since 1831 of William Bragg, who settled thereon, 
and he had made a title bond to said Jacob Maddy, Daniel Bragg 
then living on the mountain back of the river. Joseph Willard 
also claimed the Old Bottom settlements by deed from Martin. 
Jacob Maddy had sold to Richard Thomas, and Thomas to Samuel 
Fox, who failed to pay for some. It was also shown that in 1815 
Jeremiah Meadows took possession of the land as tenant of Joseph 
Williard under the Martin patent. Meadows, in 1821, placed Dan- 
iel Bragg in possession of 1,100 acres for Williard, and he turned 
the same over to Thomas Bragg, who held possession until 1847. 
The tract was entered for taxes in 1816 by Joseph Williard. Judg- 
ment was rendered in favor of the plaintiff, and the defendant 
appealed to the circuit court, which affirmed the justice of the 
peace and county court, and then the defendant appealed to the 
Supreme Court of Appeals of Virginia. The final judgment was 
entered in July, 1851. Reynolds represented Cales; William Smith 
and Samuel Price represented McPherson and Miller. By the final 
decree the plaintiffs won, and the lower court's judgment was 
affirmed. The Old Bottom and a part of the mountain is now 
owned by J. Turner Moorehead, of North Carolina, which includes 
the eastern side of Richmond Falls, the water power of which is 
to be used for generating electricity by a powerful plant to be 
erected at that place in the near future. The settlement of Abra- 
ham Bragg on Long Bottom is the first we have a record of in that 
vicinity. These lands are now owned by many different people, 
and cut up into many farms. It was a finely timbered tract, but 
that has been cut off long ago. John Miller was a bachelor, en- 
terprising in his day, and he and his brother Alex, owned large 
boundaries of land in that region. After their death, both being 
bachelors, these lands were parceled out and sold in small farms, 
principally by Hon. Marion Gwinn as commissioner of the Circuit 
Court of Greenbrier County. James Cales lived to a very old age 
on the Chestnut Mountain, and his descendants still inhabit that 
region, including Riley, John, William H. and others. Jacob Maddy 
is of a Monroe County family, and the descendants of Abraham 
and Daniel Bragg still live and inhabit that section, both in Ra- 
leigh and Summers Counties. 

See 15 Grattan for a full report of the case above recited. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 803 



ALDERSON vs. MILLER. 

This was an interesting case brought in Greenbrier County by 
people residing in the territory of Summers, and the controversy, 
which was unlawful detainer, was over 100 acres of land on the 
mountains of Lick Creek. The plaintiff was Captain A. A. Miller 
vs. Asa Alderson, brought in the circuit court of said county for 
the possession of the 100 acres where Alderson then lived and 
afterwards known as the Dunbar and then as the Rookstool lands. 
At the trial Alderson received a verdict in his favor in the county 
court. Miller obtained a supersedeas to the judgment of the circuit 
court and a judgment in his favor; Alderson appealed to the Su- 
preme Court of Appeals of Virginia, and the case was decided 
again in Alderson's favor in that court on the 31st day of August, 
1859. What was known as the Schermerhorn Title Banks Patent 
came in question, that title involving J 28,000 acres of land in then 
Blue Sulphur District, now Green Sulphur. Miller leased the land 
to Alderson on the 1st of March. 1858, who declined to give pos- 
session when his lease expired, and Miller sued. Alderson set up 
in the defense a decree of the Circuit Court of Henrico County, 
Virginia, of April 21, 1852, in two causes there pending of Richard 
B. Smith and David Doyle, plaintiffs, vs. Eliza L. Schermerhorn 
and others, defendants. The other case named George Alderson, 
John Alderson, William Miller and others, .plaintiffs, vs. Richard 
Smith, David Doyle and others, defendants. By the decree in this 
case the sheriff of Greenbrier was commanded to deliver into the 
possession of Eliza L. Schermerhorn all the lands in the possession 
of George Alderson and the Andersons or others through them 
held since May 23, 1837, and the defendant. Asa Alderson's, claim 
to a title deed executed in 1829. The Supreme Court sustained 
Alderson's contention, reversed the circuit court and affirmed the 
judgment of the county court. Samuel Price represented Aider- 
son ; Borden & Crosby represented Miller. This land was held by 
Alderson until he sold to Dunbar and moved to Greenbrier, where 
his son, Samson Alderson, now resides His grandson is Hon. 
Charles M. Alderson, the lawyer of Charleston. Granville Aider- 
son, the school man of Alderson. AVest Virginia, is also a son of 
Samson. See 15 Grattan, 278. 



804 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY/ WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE McKELVEY CASE. 

Theodore F. McKelvey was a locomotive engineer on the C. & 
O. Railway for a number of years prior to August 31, 1888. He 
married a lady of Patterson, N. J. 

On the 31st day of April, 1888, while running his engine east 
from Montgomery towards Hinton, at Sewell Station, having 
stopped to take on water at that place from the tank, and just 
having filled the same, the engine exploded, causing the instant 
death of McKelvey, and almost killing L. N. Bartgiss, his fireman. 
McKelvey's body was thrown higher than the trees, and part of 
his remains were left hanging in the trees by the river bank, the 
river at that place being very deep. 

Mrs. McKelvey qualified as administratrix, and the railroad 
company refused to make settlement or pay anything by reason 
of the death of her husband. The firm of Adams & Miller, of 
Hinton, were employed to bring suit for damages, which was 
instituted in the year 1888, in the Circuit Court of Fayette County, 
West Virginia. The railroad company was defended by Simms 
& Enslow, attorneys, of Huntington, West Virginia. Major Brazie 
sat as special judge at the trial. At the first calling of the case on 
the evening before, both sides were ready for trial, and so stated, 
having all their witnesses present. At that time the railroad com- 
pany was represented by Judge James H. Furgeson, who died 
before the trial, and was succeeded by Messrs. Simms & Enslow, 
as counsel for the railroad company. There was an important 
witness in behalf of the estate by the name of LeGrange, who was 
a boiler maker, employed in the shops at Hinton. When the case 
was called, Judge Furgeson announced that they were not ready 
for trial on account of the absence of LaGrange, who had been 
there the evening before. Upon a search being made, it was ascer- 
tained that LaGrange had disappeared. A suspension of the trial 
was had and a messenger sent to Hinton, but no LaGrange could 
be found. His absence necessitated a continuance. LaGrange 
never returned to Hinton, but had cut across the country, boarded 
a freight train at Gaymont and gone west. After several months 
he was located in the employment of the East Tennessee & Georgia 
Railroad Company, at Atlanta, Ga. Notice was given the railway 
company to take his deposition, and James H. Miller, representing 
the plaintiff, and Henr}^ Simms, representing the railway com- 
pany, went to that city and secured the deposition of LaGrange, 
however, before the attorneys reached Atlanta, a representative 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 805 



of the railway company appeared on the ground and in company 
with the witness. After securing the evidence of LaGrange, an- 
other witness, in the meantime, had disappeared, and this man 
was located at Nashville, Tenn. W. W. Adams for the plaintiff, 
and Major Joseph E. Chilton, for the defendant, went to Nashville 
and secured his testimony. Great interest was manifested in this 
case. Four expert boiler makers were brought by the railroad 
company from Schenectady, N. Y., and a number of practical loco- 
motive engineers were summoned on behalf of the widow. 

A trial was finally had, and the jury gave judgment for the 
plaintiff in the sum of $10,000.00. From this judgment an appeal 
was taken to the Supreme Court, and was reversed by reason of 
wrongful instructions having been given by the trial judge, and a 
new trial was awarded. Before the next calling of the case the rail- 
road company adjusted the differences, and the action was dis- 
missed. 

This case attracted great attention by reason of the character 
of the accident which caused the death of McKelvey. LaGrange 
had worked on the engine at frequent times, as well as other boiler 
makers, and he testified that there was fifty stay bolts broken. 
These bolts were to hold together the fire box and outside valves. 
He also testified that the boiler had a quantity of mud in it, which 
should have been taken out ; the crown sheet had been down and 
had been burnt ; the side sheets had given away two or three 
times, and the bolts were not sufficient, they being three-fourth 
inch bolts, when they should have been seven-eighths. These de- 
fects had been reported by McKelvey, and also by LaGrange to 
the foreman, a gentleman by the name of Butler. 

McKelvey had stated on frequent occasions that the engine 
was dangerous, and that he didn't want to run it. The fire box 
seemed to have broken all to pieces by the explosion, and was sunk 
into the bottom of the river. It was claimed that the railway com- 
pany, after the first trial, had a diver to go into the bottom of 
New River and find the fire box and examine it, but finding that it 
showed the defects complained of, they refused to bring it to the 
surface, and made settlement. 

The defence of the railway company was that contributory 
negligence applied, claiming that McKelvey knew of the dangerous 
condition of the boiler, and should not have run the engine, know- 
ing this fact. Plaintiff contended that he had a right to presume 
that the company would repair these defects after having been 
notified. 



806 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE STATE vs. ROBERT PAULEY. 

The defendant and W. Harrison Robbins were two young men 
residing at Pence Springs, in Talcott District, both of whom were 
poor and labored for their living, Pauley being engaged in ferrying 
persons across Greenbrier River at his father's ferry, his father, 
Felt Pauley, owning the ferry at that place. 

It was Christmas time. The young men had been indulging in 
strong drink and were under its influence. Robbins' brother and 
Pauley had some words, and threats were made. Pauley went to 
his house and secured his shotgun and returned to Kesler's store, 
where the Robbins had remained. They again got into words, and 
it is claimed a knife was used, and that Pauley had cut Cal Rob- 
bins, brother of Harrison, and, from the evidence Robbins followed 
Pauley down the road towards the river. Robbins had no weapons. 
An altercation ensued, and Pauley shot Robbins through the body, 
the load passing through the thigh of the deceased, cutting a large 
hole, by reason of the parties being in close proximity, the wound 
being one and one-half inches in diameter, made at short range. 
Testified to as a dangerous and deadly wound. Immediately after 
the shooting Pauley ran swiftly towards the river in the dark, and 
the next day was standing around at the depot. 

The State was given one hour and the defense one and one- 
fourth hours for argument. Dunlap used thirty-one minutes ; Hef- 
lin, forty-five minutes ; Mann, thirty minutes, and Read, twenty- 
nine minutes. 

This occurred on December 26, 1906, at Pence Springs depot. 
Robbins died within nine days, and Pauley was arrested and held 
in jail. At the January Term, 1907, on the 8th, he was indicted 
by the grand jury, and entered a plea of not guilty, and the case 
was set for trial on the 10th, at which time the case came on to 
trial. The jury was composed of Charles M. West, C. A. Rich- 
ardson, Millard F. Withrow, Alfred W. Lilly, S. G. Huffman, J. T. 
Law, S. J. Michell, H. J. Thompson, W. W. Martin, J. A. Ball, 
E. C. Grummell and E. F. Thompson. 

Judge Heflin and Colonel Mann ably represented the accused, 
and Messrs. Dunlap, the prosecuting attorney, and Read, his assist- 
ant, prosecuted with ability for the State. Miss Mary Miller acted 
as stenographer. The plea of self-defense was interposed by the 
defense, it being claimed by him that the shooting was done by 
him in self-defense, and that it was necessary to save his life or to 
protect his body from great bodily harm. As is usual, all the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 807 



witnesses did not see all the transactions at the scene of the conflict 
alike, and there was a conflict in the testimony. The taking of 
evidence occupied a day. The case was argued by each of the coun- 
sel engaged in the trial, time being' allowed to a side. The jury re- 
turned with a verdict of guilty of voluntary manslaughter. 

Robbins was a son of "Bill" Robbins, who was sentenced to 
serve seventeen years in the penitentiary for causing the death of 
his daughter after being guilty of incest, and died some ten 
years ago. 

A motion was made to set aside the verdict of the jury and 
grant the accused a trial on the grounds that the verdict was 
contrary to the new law and the evidence, which the court took 
time to consider, and on the 15th this motion was argued and 
overruled by the court. Then the prisoner was sentenced to con- 
finement in the penitentiary at hard labor for the period of five 
years. 

THE CASE OF ELBERT MEDLIN. 

Elbert Medlin is a young colored man born in the county. His 
mother is a white woman of low and degraded instincts. His 
father was a light mulatto. They claimed to have been married 
several years ago in Ohio, and have resided for a number of years 
on the banks of New River opposite Hinton. 

At the February Term, 1903, of the Circuit Court of Summers 
County he was convicted and sent to the penitentiary of the State 
for two years. He served the term and returned to Hinton, and 
at the June Term, 1905, of the same court he was again convicted, 
sentenced and served a term of one year in the same prison. Again 
at the October Term, 1906, he was again indicted for maliciously 
shooting Charles Smith through the lungs, and" Mary Smith, his 
wife, in the leg, both light mulattoes and of unsavory reputation. 
The trial came on to be heard at the March Term, 1907. The 
accused plead not guilty, and a jury was impanelled to try him. 
The attorneys representing the State were R. F. Dunlay, prose- 
cuting attorney, and T. N. Read, his assistant. The attorneys for 
Medlin were Messrs. T. G. Mann and E. C. Eagle. 

It developed that they lived as neighbors near the west end of 
the new steel bridge; that Medlin was jealous of Smith, Medlin's 
wife having separated from him ; that on the 6th day of October, 
1906, Medlin dressed in his wife's clothes, went out into the public 
road, and called Smith to him, it being quite dark. Just as he 
came down, Mary Smith came over the bridge, and Medlin shot 



808 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Smith through the body, the ball passing through his lungs; then 
he turned on Mary and shot her in the leg. They both thought he 
was a woman who did the shooting, and Mary was indicted also 
for the offense. The trial came on on the 26th day of March, 1907, 
before a jury, and a verdict of guilty was returned at ten o'clock 
that night. A motion was made for a new trial, affidavits were 
filed, and on the 30th day of March the verdict was set aside by 
the court by reason of the contents of the affidavits, which went 
to show that some other party had done the shooting. 

The penalty for an offense of this character on a third convic- 
tion is confinement in the penitentiary for life. This being the 
third conviction of Medlin, it meant a lifetime imprisonment. The 
court rendered its decision granting him a new trial, having in 
mind some doubt from said affidavits as to the guilt of the accused 
in this instance. He has never been re-tried for this offense, but 
after the new trial had been granted in the latter case he robbed 
a man while confined in jail, Carl Shumate, who was then confined 
-for drunkenness in the same cell with Medlin, and broke jail and 
made his escape by throwing a bowl of bean soup in the jailor's 
face, blinding him, then knocked him down and broke through the 
door. Later he was captured, returned to jail, and at the October 
Term, 1907, again indicted for the robbery of Shumate, tried by 
a jury, and again convicted. A motion was made for a new trial, 
which was overruled. This was his fouth conviction of a felony. 
The motion to set aside the verdict and a judgment of confinement 
in the penitentiary for life entered, and which he is now serving. 
His brother, Brad Medlin, is also serving a cumulative sentence of 
twenty-three years in the same penitentiary. 

BLAINE KINLEY CASE. 

Blaine Kinley is a young negro, very black, reared at the mouth 
of Bluestone River, a son of Greely Kinley, about twenty-one 
years of age. He killed Edward Pack, another negro, about twen- 
ty-five years old, married and the father of one child, in Avis, in 
the night in 1906, between nine and ten o'clock. 

Pack was a laborer, and worked at the. round-house in Hinton, 
working at night. Kinley was also a laborer, living with his father, 
unmarried, without a steady occupation. He was in the habit of 
visiting at Pack's home in Pack's absence. On the night referred 
to, 1906, Pack went to his work as usual, but, becoming unwell, 
returned to his residence about nine o'clock. No lights were to 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 809 



be seen inside. He knocked, but his wife was slow about opening' 
the door, and he pushed it open, entered in the dark, placed his 
hand on some man ; could tell it was a man by his clothing, when 
this man shot him with a 32 Smith & Wesson revolver. The 
ball passed through Pack's body through the stomach. The as- 
sassin ran out and up the street in the dark, followed by Pack, 
who ran across the street and fell. Kinley ran up the street to his 
father's house, secured his friend, a colored man by the name of 
Merchant, went to the river, secured a boat, crossed New River 
and went up New River to Pack's Ferry, to his brother's house, 
when he hid his pistol under the pillow and waited for daylight, 
his shoes and clothing being covered with mud. 

About daylight, W. F. Bush, the policeman in Avis, with a 
Mr. W eis as guard, came to the house and arrested him. He con- 
fessed to them that he had shot Pack. The officers found Kinley 
by following his tracks up the river, as it had rained and the road 
was muddy. Kinley was brought back to Hinton, a preliminary 
examination was had before Squire C. L. Parker, justice of the 
peace, and sent on to await the action of the grand jury at the 
June Term of the Circuit Court, when he was indicted for murder 
and his trial set for June 14, 1906. Pack, after he fell on the side- 
walk, was removed to Bigony's hispital, and died from the wound 
on the morning following, after having made a dying statement 
to be used on the trial of Blaine Kinley. 

At the trial the prosecuting attorney, R. F. Dunlap, and assist- 
ant, T. N. Read, represented the State, and A. R. Heflin represented 
the defendant, Judge Miller presiding. The trial was concluded 
about midnight, an hour and a half being occupied in the argu- 
ments on each side. The jury, after being out only four minutes, 
returned a verdict. "We, the jury, find the defendant, Blaine Kin- 
ley, not guilty of murder in the first degree, as charged in the 
indictment, but we do find him guilty of murder in the second 
degree, as therein charged." 

A formal motion was interposed by Judge Heflin for a new 
trial and in arrest of judgment, and the court adjourned. On the 
next morning, on the convening of court, the court overruled the 
motion for a new trial, and proceeded to pass the sentence of the 
law, which was "That Blaine Kinley be returned to the jail of 
this county, and there held until he could be transported to the 
penitentiary of the State, and there to be confined according to 
the law of the State for the period of eighteen years." When the 
prisoner was asked by the judge if he had anything to say why 



810 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



the sentence of the law should not be passed, he replied, "No, sir." 
Immediately following the sentence of Blaine Kinley the court 
took up the trial of Manuel Kinley, his brother, for burglary, a 
trial had on the same day, and which resulted in a hung jury, 
eleven being in favor of guilty and one in favor of acquittal, and 
he has not at this time had a re-trial. 

The jury who tried him were as follows: A. T. Dobbins, Jack- 
son Bennett, A. G. Williams, J. S. Meadows, O. E. Maddy, G. H. 
Allen, A. G. Lilly, J. F. Hoover, T. J. Lilly, C. S. Wyant, B. F. 
Foley and F. B. Lively. 

THE WM. HALE CASE. 

On the 21st day of April, 1899, Squire Law, an old colored 
man, was keeping a restaurant on Front Street, in Hinton. On 
the night of said day, about midnight, four or five men and women 
were in this restaurant having a good time, dancing to the music 
of an "accordial," as one of the witnesses testified, drinking beer, 
etc., when Law T and Wm. Hale, a young negro, got into a diffi- 
culty and had some words, Hale breaking some chairs over Law. 
Hale went out, and was gone about half an hour, when he returned 
with a "gun," and offered to pay Law one dollar for the damaged 
chairs and head, but Law declined. Harsh words prevailed. Hale 
drew his gun and fired point-blank into Law's body, the ball pass- 
ing directly through his body and coming out at his back. Law 
followed and ran up the street, and fired, hitting Newt Morris, 
another negro. Hale was not in sight, and Morris was shot through 
the leg. 

Hale left the country and remained away seven years, in the 
meantime being indicted for malicious wounding, the .indictment 
also charging that Hale had been twice sentenced to the peni- 
tentiary. If found guilty of this crime, his sentence would be 
confinement in the penitentiary for life. Hale returned to the 
city in 1906, and was in hiding, but was arrested by Policemen 
McGhee and Yancey, and landed in jail. 

At the June term, in 1906, on June 14th, the case came on to 
be tried. The accused pleaded not guilty, having by his attorneys 
moved to quash the indictment, and demurred, which motions 
were overruled. A. R. Heflin and T. G. Mann were attorneys for 
the defendant, and R. F. Dunlap, prosecuting attorney, and T. N. 
Read, his assistant, appeared- for the State. 

The evidence was all in by five o'clock in the evening, and an 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



811 



hour and a half was given to each side for aigument. The prose- 
cuting attorney opened for the State in an argument of forty 
minutes. A recess was then taken until after supper, when Colo- 
nel Mann concluded the arguments for the defendant. The jury 
retired to consider their verdict, and on returning the foreman an- 
nounced, "We, the jury, find the defendant guilty as charged in 
the within indictment," whereupon the court proceeded to sen- 
tence him to confinement in the penitentiayr for five years. The 
case closed at midnight. The court house was filled to hear the 
evidence and arguments of counsel. The pistols used were brought 
into court and handled before the jury. 

A new proposition was passed upon by the court, for which 
no authorities could be produced in support of or against. The 
attorneys for the State failed to prove by their direct testimony 
the fact that Hale had been twice previously sentenced to the 
penitentiary in the United States, and undertook to do so after 
the accused had introduced all his evidence, except his personal 
examination. The defendant's attorneys objected, which objec- 
tion was sustained, and which eliminated the life sentence from 
the case. 

IN EJECTMENT. 
A. A. Carden, Plff., vs. Garrett Brown, Deft. 

This cause was one of the most famous civil causes ever tried 
by a jury in the county, and was concerning about thirty acres 
of the old Carden lands on the 'hills near Barger Springs. There 
were three trials, the first being on the 16th day of September, 
1883; the second, May 8, 1884, and the third and final one on the 
16th day of September, 1885, which was in. favor of the plaintiff. 

Celebrated and distinguished counsel appeared in the cause, 
including Senator Frank Hereford, Colonel James W. Davis and 
Captain R. F. Dennis. The expense of the trial was greater than 
the value of the property. A. A. Carden was one of the sons of 
Isaac Carden, the first settler, and Garrett Brown, an old settler, 
the father of the present citizen, Allen F. Brown. The jury that 
tried the case were: Walter H. Boude (present circuit clerk), 
James E. Meadows, foreman ; G. C. Hughes, James A. Foster, 
Giles H. Ballengee, W. D. Rollyson, P. M. Foster. J. H. Jordan. 
Joseph Hubbard, Isaac Milburn, T. B. Barker, J. E. Meadows. J. 
Gwinn and G. W. Chatten. The old Watkins patent and the Car- 
den title to the Barger Springs property came in question. Of 



812 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



these, J. C. Hughes now lives in Arkansas ; J. H. Jordan is cashier 
of the National Bank of Summers ; J. E. Meadows is mayor of 
Avis; Messrs. Chatten, Gwinn and Rollyson are dead, and the re- 
mainder, are residents of the county. The case was tried Septem- 
ber 10, 1885. 

In this case an old deed, date the 30th day of August, 1815, 
was filed, from Michael Erskine, deputy sheriff of Monroe County 
for William Haynes, sheriff, to David and Joseph Graham, for 
1,211 acres of land sold for non-payment of taxes for the years 
1811, 1812, 1813, 1814 and 1815. The whole price paid for the 
1,211 acres was $5.79, and was sold as delinquent for the non- 
payment of taxes for those years by Richard .Stocton, and they 
secured a good and valid title thereto. Stocton was the patentee. 

IN EJECTMENT. 

Wm. Turner, Plff., vs. A. M. Hutchinson, Julia A. Hoback, Sarah 
E. Turner and Matilda Turner, Defts. 

This was an action in ejectment brought by William Turner, 
through Adams and Miller, his attorneys, April 6, 1891, for the 
possession of only a few acres of a thirty-three-acre tract of land 
in Forest Hill District, in which the two old Pollard patents (one 
of 1,390 acres and the other of 2,500 acres) were involved in the 
ascertainment of the true ownership of the land sued for. Messrs. 
Thompson & Lively were the attorneys for the defendants. Sur- 
veys were made and maps filed by John E. Harvey, county sur- 
veyor, and another by James B. Lavender, a surveyor of Hinton, 
by orders of the court. A number of continuances were had, and 
a great amount of costs piled up. Finally a trial was had by a 
jury composed of Harry Haynes, M. L. Duncan, J. G. Cules, D. 
M. Meador, R. L. Martin, J. L. Duncan, J. A. Bryant, E. T. Hin- 
ton, J. M. Parker, E. E. Angell, J. A. Fox and J. W. Bradbury. 
The jury failed to agree and were discharged, after which the par- 
ties compromised, each paying his own costs and dividing the 
land. The plaintiff's costs were $250.05, and the defendant's, $71.15, 
with attorneys' fees to add. Judge A. N. Campbell presided at the 
trial. There were a large number of witnesses. One of the Pol- 
lard patents had a straight line of over four miles, which had to 
be ascertained. 

The Benj. Pollard grant of 1,390 acres was conveyed by him 
on the first day of January, 1807, to Robt. Gibson. Pollard lived 
in Norfolk, Virginia. The price paid was $1,000. It is described 



A WEST VIRGINIA COLONY AT HOT 
SPRINGS, ARK. — 1906. 



T. H. Lilly, 
J. B. Douglas, 
John W. Flannagan, 
Dick Shelton. 

Fred 



John D. Alderson, 
Clarence Alderson, 
Jane T. Miller. 
Jas. H. Miller, 
Callahan. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



813 



as being in Greenbrier County, on the headwaters of Bradshaw's 
Run, Little Stony Creek and Little Wolf Creek, and adjoining 
one of the Henry Banks patents. Thus it will be seen the names 
of these streams were borne by them one hundred years ago. 

In October, 1839, a suit was pending in Monroe County, of 
Burwell W. Seay and others, heirs of Benj. Pollard, vs. Sarah 
Hutchinson, on a ''writ of right." A survey was ordered of the 
2,500-acre patent, which was granted in 1786, April 22d. 

In 1849 the heirs of Benj. Pollard appointed Allen T. Caper- 
ton their attorney in fact to dispose of all of said patent. 

In 1833 the court of law and chancery of Petersburg, Va., in 
a suit against Robert Gibson's heirs, ordered a sale of said 1,390 
acres, and appointed Hugh Caperton, of Union, a special commis- 
sioner to make the sale and convey the land, to sell the 1,390-acre 
patent, and Allen T. Caperton and John H. Vawter became the 
purchasers. The land was sold for the payment of 521 pounds, 
two shillings and five pence farthing. Said Caperton and Vawter 
bought the land — 1,390 acres — when sold at public auction to the 
highest bidder, at the Red Sulphur Springs, for $352 cash, this 
being the amount for which these 1,390 acres of land sold, wmich 
are now owned by many thrifty farmers, and are worth many thou- 
sands of dollars. Both of these surveys are now practically cleared 
^nd in cultivation, and go to make up at least fifty farms, owned 
by intelligent, law-abiding, well-to-do citizens. 

The case of Turner vs. Hutchinson grew out of the location 
especially of one corner. Great and diversified opinions prevailed 
among different honest, intelligent and competent surveyors, and 
the jury could not agree after hearing the proof. The parties on 
both sides of the case were honest people, but stubborn and de- 
termined, and it was not the value of the property involved, but 
the principle, and the claim of both to be in the right. 

FELONY. 

The State of West Virginia vs. Rosa Ford and Zella Gray. 

Zella Gray and Rosa Ford were two young women, aged re- 
spectfully nineteen and tw r enty-three years, of ill-repute, who were 
living in August, 1907, at Flat Rock, on the outskirts of Hinton, 
in a cabin. The Ford girl had been sentenced and served a part 
of a term in the Reform School, but escaped therefrom, and was 
afterwards sentenced and served a term of three years in the 



814 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



penitentiary of West Virginia. After the expiration of her term, 
she returned to Hinton and again began a career of dissipation, 
crime and prostitution. Zella Gray was raised in the community, 
her parents being divorced. She was a notorious character, cruel, 
dissipated and without a conscience. They had been prosecuted 
within the city limits and compelled by the city authorities to re- 
move therefrom, and had located at this cabin at Flat Rock. On 
the night of August 16, 1907, a woman by the name of Sarah Siers, 
commonly known as Sarah Sawyers, and nicknamed "Mississippi" 
Sawyers, was staying with these girls, occupying a menial posi- 
tion, doing washing, cooking, etc., and sleeping on a pallet in the 
corner of the room. The girls were attractive in appearance, 
neatly dressed in fine raiment and in the fashions of the land on 
the day of their trial. On the night referred to the girls had been 
drinking, and a number of people had visited their house. With- 
out cause they got into a quarrel and attacked the Sawyers woman, 
who was fifty-nine years old, and struck her with a poker, three 
smoothing-irons, glasses, glass pitchers and other instruments. 
Her face was beaten until she was almost unrecognizable. Dr. 
J. A. Fox was called the next morning to examine her. and found 
thirty-two cuts and wounds on her face and head, twenty-one on 
her right hand and arm, and eleven on her left arm and hand. 
Her clothes were rent and covered with blood,_and she was found 
in a dying condition. She had managed to escape in the night 
and wandered into the woods, where she remained until daylight, 
when she wandered back to the high road. Xo doubt was enter- 
tained at the time but what she would die from her wounds ; but 
after a lingering illness she' recovered, and was the principal wit- 
ness in the prosecution. After her wounds were dressed she was 
sent to the poor-house, where she was still staying at the time 
of the trial in October, at which time she had recovered to the 
extent of being able to attend the circuit court as a witness for the 
State. At the October term, 1907, these girls were indicted under 
the maiming statute for malicious wounding. They were arraigned 
for trial before Judge James H. Miller, on the morning of October 
11, 1907. They each in person pleaded not guilty. The State was 
represented by the prosecuting attorney, R. F. Dunlap, and his as- 
sistant, Thomas N. Read. The girls were defended by Messrs. T. 
G. Mann, Wm. H. Sawyers and A. R. Heflin. Ben D. Keller was 
the court stenographer who transcribed the evidence. The jury 
was composed of Dennis Twohig, G. C. Alderson, J. M. Roach, 
Albert H. Mann, J. A. Allen, A. A. Bostic, L. W. Kessler, H. W. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



815 



Flanagan. J. P. Merrix, Francis W. Buckland, Taylor Reed and 
A. L. Taylor. Dennis Twohig was a son of the Irish settler, Rich- 
ard Twohig; G. C. Alderson, a descendant of the ancient Baptist 
minister, John Alderson; J. M. Roach, a descendant of John Roach, 
who settled back of Big Bend Tunnel, on the Greenbrier, on the 
Morris YVyant place. Albert H. Mann was a son of Isaac Mann, 
the settler on Bluestone and Jumping Branch. L. \Y. Kessler was 
a descendant of Abraham Kessler. H. AW Flanagan was a grand- 
son of R. E. Flanagan. F. W. Buckland was a son of Francis 
Buckland. A. L. Taylor was a son of Garrett Taylor, brother of 
Captain Silas Taylor. The witnesses for the State were : Sarah 
Siers, William F. Steers. J. A. Fox, J. R. Woolwine, Mrs. J. R. 
Woolwine, Tom Breeden, Julia Roach, and Sheriff A. J. Keatley. 
The only witnesses for the defendants were themselves. William 
F. Steers, under the sheriff's direction, had gone to the house and 
gathered up the various implements of war, and brought into the 
court-room a basket full of broken glassware, etc., as well as bun- 
dles of clothes, which were worn by the various parties engaged 
in the difficulty. The clothing of all the parties was saturated with 
blood. 

The defendants testified in their own behalf. The case was 
argued by all the counsel engaged except Colonel Mann. The 
jury was instructed by the court, and after being out Inn a few 
minutes, returned the following verdict: "We, the jury, find the 
prisoners, Rosa Ford and Zella Gray, guilty of malicious wound- 
ing as charged in the within indictment." The jury was discharged, 
whereupon Counsellor Sawyers moved the court in arrest of judg- 
ment, and to set aside the verdict of the jury as contrary to the 
law and evidence. The court overruled these motions, directed the 
prisoners to stand up, and asked them if they had anything to say 
why sentence of law should not be passed upon them, to which 
they responded that they ''plead for mercy and for leniency." 
The court thereupon proceeded to pronounce the sentence, which 
was that Rosa Ford should be confined in the penitentiary of the 
State for the term of ten years, and that Zella Gray be therein 
confined for the period of seven years. 

In the trial of this cause there were used in evidence four 
photographs taken of Sarah Sawyers on the next day after the 
tragedy, showing the different wounds and her condition. Her 
eyes were swollen shut, and one ear was destroyed to the extent 
that the doctor's, hand was plainly visible in the picture in holding 
the ear in position. 



816 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE ANDY SLAGLE CASE. 

One Andy Slagle, who lives in Possum Hollow in the upper 
Keeney Knob country, near the Greenbrier line, some three or four 
miles from Alderson, was indicted in 1907 for the malicious shoot- 
ing of Patrick G. Burns. The case came on to be heard, with Saw- 
yers and Herlin representing the accused, and Dunlap and Read 
prosecuting for the State. 

In the country where this shooting occurred lived the Forrens. 
Harrahs, Maddoxs, Bryants and others. It is in the region of the 
headwaters of Griffith's Creek, the Eleber Spring ( the headwaters 
of lower Lick Creek), and is an isolated region, from which many 
of the denizens who attended this trial had never seen a court 
house before. There were forty witnesses summoned. 

Slagle is a one-armed man. and has a local reputation of being 
a pole-cat trapper and dealer in the furs from the skunk, and was 
an expert in the handling of the perfumed hides of these rodents, 
the chief criminal ambition of that section not being elevated above 
the night-time visits to the chicken roosts. Slagle's claim to no- 
toriety was above the common among the people of the com- 
munity. Slagle contended that Burns was visiting his chicken 
house in the night-time against the wishes and consent of the 
aforesaid Slagle, and thereupon he fired at him with a shotgun 
loaded with bird shot, and some twenty-live of these murderous 
missiles were taken from Burns' body by the surgeon. It was 
shown that he had threatened to "bleed" Burns some days pre- 
viously, and the evidence clearly showed that the shooting was 
premeditated with malice. A number of Bryants were witnesses, 
one of whom especially was devoted in his love for chicken flesh. 

It was related that, on one occasion, being desirous of possess- 
ing himself of the chickens of his neighbor, being a man of great 
piety, he called at the house of his friend and insisted on having 
family prayer for the salvation of the whole family. This neighbor 
did not especially desire the prayers on that occasion, but the 
deacon, expressing great anxiety for their spiritual welfare, in- 
sisted on the presence of the entire family, who were called in. 
except one or two who were out in the field. Finally all had con- 
gregated except one, and Brother Bryant was so insistent that he 
went after him to the barnyard himself. After securing a full 
attendance, he began his devotions by reading from the longest 
chapter he could find in the Bible, which he designated as "The 
one-eyed chapter of the two-eyed John." being intended, as he 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



817 



meant it, for the first chapter of second John. After reading this 
chapter he began his prayer, which he continued for almost thirty 
minutes, during which there was a great noise from the chicken 
house, and the more noise the chickens made, the louder Deacon 
Bryant prayed. Finally he hastily left the house, and his good 
neighbor, upon investigating the cause of the disturbance among 
the chickens, found that the entire roost had been depopulated, 
for, while Deacon Bryant was praying, his confederate had trans- 
ported the entire brood. 

Slagle was forty-seven years of age and unmarried. He had 
stated that he would as soon shoot Burns as shoot a rabbit. Burns 
was at that time passing in the big road, carrying a lot of goods 
which he had purchased in Alderson. Immediately after the shot 
he raised a cry of distress, which brought the neighobors to the 
scene, and they carried him off the field. The doctors from Aider- 
son were sent for, and he recuperated in a few weeks. 

The jury which tried the case were J. F. Beckner, Frank A. 
Cundiff, J- W, Barton, D. C. Epperlv, M. E. Donahoe, J. L. Bates, 
James H. Dickinson, John E. C. L. Hatcher, John M. Wyant, C. D. 
Guttridge, M. A. Cox and James F. Akers. 

After long argument and instructions by the court, the jury 
brought in a verdict of unlawful, but not malicious, wounding. A 
motion to set aside was overruled, and a sentence of sixty days 
in jail, the payment of a fine of $50.00 and costs, which were $300, 
was imposed. 

In this trial. Mr. A. L. Taylor, a so;i of Garrett Taylor, who is 
a brother of Captain Silas T. Taylor, and his two sons, were im- 
portant witnesses, as were many others from that region. 

THE CARRIE DOOLEY CASE. 

I write of this case while it is fresh in mind, it having been 
tried before me as judge of the circuit court at the October term. 
1905. The case was prosecuted ably and vigilantly by Messrs. 
R. F. Dunlap, prosecuting attorney, and T. X. Read, his assistant. 
The accused was earnestly, ably and faithfully defended by Judge 
A. R. Heflin, of the Hinton bar, and Hon. Wm. E. Allen, of the 
Covington (Ya.) bar. The attorneys were not limited as to time 
in argument. Dunlap occupied one hour and a half and Read an 
hour, for the State, the argument being opened by Dunlap and 
closed by Read. Mr. Allen occupied two hours and fifteen minutes. 



818 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



and Judge Heflin, who closed for the accused, about an hour and 
thirty minutes. The jury was composed of' J. A. Foster, J. D. 
Hoke, R. L. Hopkins, M. H. Hix, L. G. Williams, C. P. Crotty, 
R. J. Crook, A. M. Austin, S. P. Turner, C. H. Read, G. P. Mead- 
ows and Lawrence Williamson, and the trial occupied two days. 
Miss Mary Miller was the stenographer who transcribed the testi- 
mony. 

On the 13th day of July, 1905, Carrie Dooley shot and killed 
B. D. Gibson, in a room over the mayor's office, in the city of Hin- 
ton, where he resided with his wife and Carrie Dooley, his step- 
daughter. Gibson was a railroad locomotive fireman, and was 
lying on the bed asleep when killed, the top of his head being prac- 
tically blown off. The accused was fifteen years of age at the date 
of the trial, and the shooting was done with a single-barreled 
breech-loading shotgun. 

Gibson had come in from his run, ate his breakfast with a 
neighbor, drank some liquor with one Sevey, played the riddle, and 
laid down to sleep. Soon afterwards a shot was heard, and the 
girl came out of the house and said she had shot Gibson. The 
girl and her mother were arrested at Clifton Forge, Va., charged 
with murder, and indicted. The accused stated on the stand that 
she did the shooting and claimed that her step-father had struck 
her and made indecent proposals to her and tried to ruin her, and 
to prevent this she had done the shooting. The evidence tended 
to show, however, that the shooting was done while he was asleep. 
The gun was found in the kitchen. The prisoner had made differ- 
ent statements about the occurrence. 

Great interest was taken in the trial, the court house being 
crowded to its capacity, on account, especially, of the youth of the 
accused, who did not seem to appreciate the enormity of the of- 
fense. The jury was out a short time, and brought in a verdict of 
murder in the second degree, and she was sentenced to confine- 
ment in the Industrial School for Girls at Salem, West Virginia, 
until she became twenty-one years of age, or was otherwise re- 
leased according to law. Her mother, who was indicted as an ac- 
cessory, was never tried, the State being unable to connect her 
with the crime, although circumstances pointed strongly towards 
her, and she was indicted, , but afterwards a nol pros, was entered 
on motion of the attorney for the State. 

John W. Wiseman, Esq., the jailer, later married the mother, 
and they are living happily together. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



819 



THE KILLING OF RILEY ARMSTRONG. 

On the morning' of the 23d day of May, 1891, E. Brown Pack, 
a descendant of Samuel Pack, walked into my office, very much 
excited, and said he desired to give himself up. On asking him 
what was the trouble, he replied that he had shot Riley Armstrong, 
and reckoned he had killed him, and that he did the shooting in 
self-defense. He was placed in custody. 

Pack at the time was working a force of men at the reservoir 
built on the hill by the Hinton Water Works Company. Arm- 
strong was the town sergeant, and while a fearless man and con- 
sidered a good officer, w T as feared by violators of the law. He was 
a dangerous man in anger, or when under the influence of liquor, 
which he had not drunk for sime time. 

Pack was going to his work at the reservoir, and was passing, 
as usual, the house of Armstrong, who lived in the hollow below 
Third Street, upon the side of the hill, on the lot now owned by 
Geo. O. Ouesenberry, and at the time Pack came along was milk- 
ing his cow, early in the morning, about eight o'clock. There 
seemed to have been some existing feeling between them, words 
having been passed. Pack, who was of an excitable disposition, 
drew his revolver and shot Armstrong through the stomach, and 
he lived only a few days. Before his death he made a dying state- 
ment in the presence of Dr. S. P. Peck and the prosecuting at- 
torney. 

Pack was refused bail, indicted for murder, and after a very 
vigorous prosecution by Jas. H. Miller, the. prosecuting attorney, 
and Hon. W. W. Adams, assistant, and being ably defended by 
Hons. Wm. R. Thompson and Frank Lively, the jury brought in 
a verdict of guilty of murder in the second degree, and a sentence 
of five years' confinement in the penitentiary was imposed by Judge 
A. X. Campbell. Self-defense was interposed. It was claimed in 
defense that Armstrong was preparing to attack Pack, and to pre- 
vent himself from great bodily harm or death, the wound was in- 
flicted. Pack was a one-handed man, having lost one hand at the 
wrist by accidentally shooting himself. He was raised at the 
mouth of Greenbrier River, and was a son of Richard Pack, de- 
ceased, and at one time owned a one-half interest in the ferry and 
nineteen acres of land, now owned by Miller Bros. Pack was 
afterwards pardoned by the Governor. The time was on Septem- 
ber 12, 1891. The jury were R. P. Boyd. W. K. Eades, E. B. 
Neeley, J. D. Roles, H.~ M. Hill, R. A. Wood. S. S. Long. W. G. 
Barger, J. F. Huffman, P. M. Foster. J. J. Vest and M. M. Hall. 



820 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE SHOOTING OF L. V. REYNOLDS. 

Luther V. Reynolds was elected and qualified as constable 
of Greenbrier District, and took office. On the 20th day 
of July, 1889, the streets crowded with people — pleasure-seek- 
ers — Mr. Reynolds undertook to arrest a negro by the name 
of John Carter, not a resident of Hinton, but from the min- 
ing district of New River, on a telegram from some point West, 
for some infraction of the law. The negro, without a word, drew 
his pistol and shot Mr. Reynolds through the stomach, the ball 
lodging in the extreme back. The negro undertook to escape, but 
was lodged in the jail of this county. Talk of lynching began, and 
the prosecuting attorney, Jas. H. Miller, and the sheriff, Mr. O. T. 
Kessler, to prevent a crime, slipped the negro out of the jail, hav- 
ing arranged with the railroad authorities to stop No. 14, the east- 
bound passenger train, under the cliff at the jail at two o'clock P. 
M. They carried the prisoner down over the cliffs onto the train, 
and that evening lodged him in the jail at Lewisburg for safe- 
keeping ; and all danger of lynching was believed to have been 
avbided. 

On the second night afterwards, however, a party called out 
the sheriff of Greenbrier County, James Knight, demanded the 
keys of him by threats of violence, secured them, enteped the jail, 
took possession of the accused, and silently and without noise con- 
veyed him up the Ronceverte road about three-fourths of a mile, 
placed a rope around his neck, threw it over the lower limb of a 
large white oak tree, hardly high enough from the ground to pre- 
vent his feet from touching the earth, and there he remained until 
dead. The Summers County authorities were notified, and the 
sheriff and prosecuting attorney immediately went to Lewisburg, 
and a coroner's inquest was held. On their return by way of 
Ronceverte, one of the lynchers, who had imbibed freely of whisky, 
disclosed the entire proceedings to the prosecuting attorney. After- 
wards he appeared before the grand jury for Greenbrier County, 
and the members of the mob were indicted. In the meantime, 
however, they had all fled to foreign jurisdictions, and none of 
them was ever apprehended or legally punished for this crime. 
The man, whose name was White, who disclosed the facts of the 
lynching, fled to Virginia, and was there killed by a railroad train. 

The party who did the lynching was composed of persons from 
Hinton and Ronceverte, and were about equally divided. This, 
with the lynching in the Diffenbaugh case, are the only trans- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 821 



gress'ions of this character for which this county is in any way 
chargeable, and it is earnestly hoped that there may never again 
be occasion for reflection on the good name and fame of our 
county by reason of the people undertaking to take the law into 
their own hands. All of the officers, without exception, have been 
vigilant in the prosecution of crime and in a swift and sure meting 
out of justice, and the delays charged to the law have not had an 
abiding place in this county. 

Mr. Reynolds, the wounded man, who at the time was thought 
to have been mortally wounded, and no hope of his recovery was 
entertained by any one, did miraculously entirely recover, and is 
still living in this city at this time, with prospects of a long life 
before him. 

This is an example of the great mistake by a resort to mob law. 
The would-be slayer in this instance was killed, and his intended 
victim is yet alive. It is doubtful if justice or the law would have 
justified a jury in finding the accused guilty of murder in the first 
degree, if Mr. Reynolds wounds had proven fatal, or the infliction 
of the death penalty would have been demanded, as there would 
have been some question raised as to his authority to execute an 
arrest of the negro without other authority than a telegram from 
some one without the jurisdiction of the county. 

The law should always be permitted to take its course, al- 
though at times the aggravation is great at the time excited im- 
aginary justice demands other than the legal mode of its execution. 

THE LOUIS BENNETT CASE. 

Louis Bennett was a poor farmer, residing on the branch of 
Pipestem Creek above the old Hughes Mill. He had, unfortu- 
nately, gotten into some entanglements with a young woman 
named Warren, and one morning before breakfast she was shot in 
Mr. Bennett's house, while the family was at their meal. It was 
claimed to be a case of suicide. 

The prosecuting attorney was notified and investigations 
made, and the circumstances being of a suspicious character, 
an inquest was held. Bennett was arrested and lodged in 
jail on a charge of murder, and an indictment preferred. The 
trial was had about 190 — . The accused was ably defended by 
Hon. Frank Lively and W. R. Thompson, with their usual ability 
and energy, and. prosecuted by Jas. H. Miller, prosecuting attorney, 
and W. W. Adams. The jury was out but a short time, when they 



822 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS 



COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



returned a verdict of not guilty. There was no one present at the 
time of the shooting except the prisoner and his family. He had 
several small children, too young to be competent witnesses ; so 
the only witnesses that were on the scene, or near it at the time, 
were the defendant and his wife, although there were a number of 
other witnesses in the case as to various circumstances. Only 
these two testified as to the facts of the killing, and it was proven 
by them that the deceased complained of being unwell on the 
morning of her death, didn't get up for breakfast, and, while the 
family was in the other building, a gunshot was heard, and on 
going into the room, they found the young woman on the bed 
with the top of her head shot off. It was claimed in defense that 
she had taken down the gun — a long mountain rifle of the ac- 
cused — from the rack over the door, laid down on the bed and fired 
the same herself, she having threatened on different occasions to 
take her own life. 

THE CASE OF JAKE COLEMAN. 

Jake Coleman was a negro, who resided in Hinton for a num- 
ber of years, having served a term in the penitentiary for burglary, 
and was known as a morphine fiend. It was alleged that he had 
procured and administered morphine to a young man by the name 
of Wickline, of Hinton, from the effects of which he never recov- 
ered. The negro was arrested, and evidences of a lynching began 
to develop. The authorities at once gathered up Coleman and car- 
ried him to Union, in Monroe County, fourteen miles from the rail- 
road, where he was detained for several months at his own request, 
as he was afraid to return to Hinton. There not being sufficient 
evidence to make a case against him. he was afterwards discharged, 
and has never been heard from since that day, twenty years ago, 
or shown himself in our midst. 

THE LYNCHING OF WM. LEE. 

On the 10th day of May, 1900, Mrs! Deifenbach, a tele- 
graph operator, and the w r ife of Engineer Deifenbach, a loco- 
motive engineer, was at work in a temporary office of the Chesa- 
peake & Ohio Railway, near Sandstone, where the railroad com- 
pany was arranging to lay a double track and operating a con- 
struction force. About dusk a negro man by the name of Wm. 
I ee appeared at her office and attempted to assault Mrs. Deifen- 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



823 



bach, in which attempt he failed. The matter was reported, and 
the negro arrested and placed in jail. The people became greatly 
excited, and in the afternoon were seen in knots on the street cor- 
ners. Judge J. M. McWhorter was holding circuit court at the 
time. That night a large crowd silently collected, but without a 
disposition at secrecy, in the jail yard. Shots were fired. The 
lynchers were disguised with cloths tied over their faces, and con- 
siderable drinking had been indulged in. Bottles were found on 
the ground, and on their trail up the hollow to the place of hang- 
ing. 

Entrance was secured by force to the jail. At the time \\ . K. 
Neeley was jailer, and Jas. H. George was sheriff. Possession of 
the negro was secured, and he was brought out into the jail-yard, 
a rope placed around his neck, and it is claimed by some that he 
was shot then, and possibly a mortal wound inflicted. In the mean- 
time, and before the prisoner was secured, the judge and assistant 
prosecuting attorney, T. N. Read, appeared on the ground and 
made speeches to the crowd, pleading with them to disperse and 
permit the law to take its course, promising that a special grand 
jury should be convened the next day and a speedy trial had dur- 
ing the pending session of the court, but their appeals counted for 
naught. The crowd had met for a fixed purpose, from which it 
could not be turned. It w r as most thoroughly organized, and 
worked like machinery. After securing the prisoner it marched out 
Cliff Street to the top of the hill, where Dwight James now re- 
sides, then towards and by the old graveyard to the head of Pos- 
sum Hollow, turning from the right to the road leading to the 
Hilltop Cemetery, and going some distance above the last house 
in the edge of the woods, threw a rope over the limb of a tree, and 
left him hanging there until the next day, when he was cut down 
by the coroner. An inquest was held, and the body was buried in 
the paupers' graveyard, at the expense of the count}-. 

A number of citizens not connected with the affair saw the en- 
tire transaction at a distance, who were in no wise concerned ex- 
cept as spectators, but were entirely powerless to stay the arm of 
violence and lawlessness. The names of none of the perpetrators 
have ever been learned to this day. Many of the citizens ap- 
proached the crowd, but were commanded to stand back. This is 
the only lynching that ever occurred in the county, and it is earn- 
estly hoped that it will be the last, as there has never been occa- 
sion for resorting to lynch law in the county, if ever excusable any- 
where. 



824 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



This judgment and execution by Judge Lynch occurred on the 
11th day of May, 1900, and is the only execution of this character 
ever carried to a conclusion in the county. 

THE CHAPMAN FARLEY TRIAL. 

On the first day of July, 1889, Chapman Farley, who lived on 
top of the New River hills, near Pack's Ferry, in Pipestem Dis- 
trict, shot Wm. Barton through the body, and very dangerously 
wounded him, on the west side of Xew River, just a quarter of a 
mile above the old Pack's Ferry, or Landcraft Ferry, which is near 
the present residence of Rev. W. F. Hank, Barton at that time 
living on the place where Mr. Hank now resides. 

Farley had been in the habit of visiting the home of Barton in 
the absence of the latter, of which he secured information. On the 
day he was shot Farley visted Barton's residence, and was leaving 
to return to his home across New River, and met Mr. Barton at his 
skiff landing. An altercation ensued, which resulted in the shoot- 
ing of Barton by Farley. The wound was supposed to be fatal at 
the time, but Barton finally recovered. Farley was indicted for 
malicious assault, and the trial came on to be heard at the May 
term, 1890, of the circuit court. Judge Campbell presiding. 

After a hard-fought legal battle, the jury returned a verdict of 
guilty of unlawful but not malicious wounding, upon which the 
Judge sentenced Farley to confinement in the jail of Summers 
County for the period of six months, and imposed a fine of five 
hundred dollars and costs. Farley afterwards, by petition to the 
Governor, secured a remission of - the fine, and he received a part 
of the jail sentence off. 

Farley was defended by Messrs. Frank Lively and W. R. 
Thompson. The State was represented by Prosecuting Attorney 
Miller and W. W. Adams, and it was one of the most interesting 
and closely-fought legal battles of the county. Mr. Farley was 
prominent in affairs, and made an earnest fight for vindication. 
He still resides in the county, and is considered a peaceable and 
quiet citizen, respecting the law. His inability to control his mis- 
guided passions led him into the unfortunate trouble. The jury 
was composed of Henry Crawford, Allen Meadows, W. R. Neeley, 
V. W. Cooper, A. P. Bonham, T. M. Gwinn, J. L. Davis, J. L. Dun- 
can, J. A. Bragg, W. W. Withrow, A. H. Via and C. S. Rollyson. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 825 



THE BRAD MEDLIN CASE. 

Brad Medlin was a bright mulatto, who resided on the opposite 
side of New River, directly across from the court house of this 
county, with his parents, just above the mouth of Madam's Creek. 
On the 22d day of July, 1905, without provocation, he shot and 
killed Bob Muse with a shotgun. At the time of the shooting he 
was under the influence of strong drink. The wife of Muse (who 
w r ere colored people) was going to the body of her dead husband, 
when she was shot at by Medlin, but not wounded. Medlin then 
secured a horse and started for foreign parts, going up New River, 
and, arriving at James AW Pack's, at the mouth of Leatherwood 
Creek, about two miles above Hinton, he overtook two young men, 
named Ed. Bradberry and Luther Pack. Medlin demanded their 
money at the muzzle of his gun, and upon telling him they had 
no money, he disputed their word : told Pack that his father had 
plenty of money, and to go in and get it. Pack parleyed with him, 
and Avent in the house and secured a shotgun and came to the win- 
dow. Medlin fired into the house and Pack fired out at Medlin, fill- 
ing him full of buckshot and knocking him instantly from his horse. 
The gun being loaded with small shot, the wounds were not dan- 
gTOns, but sufficient to disable him temporarily. He w r as then ar- 
rested and placed in jail, where he soon recovered from his wounds, 
and at the October term of the circuit court following, he w r as in- 
dicted for the murder of Muse, and also for an attempt at murder, 
which was a felony, the maximum punishment being five years' 
confinement in the penitentiary. He was put on trial at the same 
term of court, and the State had concluded its evidence, making a 
strong case of murder. The attorneys then proposed to the attor- 
neys for the State to allow a verdict of murder in the second de- 
gree to be entered, which was agreed to, and the jury entered the 
following verdict : "We, the jury, find the defendant, Brad Medlin, 
guilty of murder in the second degree, as charged in the within in- 
dictment. (Signed) A. M. Austin, Foreman." 

Medlin then confessed to the indictment for the attempt, the 
second offense, whereupon a sentence w r as imposed of eighteen 
years, the maximum punishment under the law for murder in the 
second degree, a sentence of five years, which w r as given him in the 
other case, making a cumulative sentence of twenty-three years, 
and Medlin is now serving that time in the State penitentiary. 

He was defended by Col. T. G. Mann and Hon. AT. F. Matheney. 
and prosecuted by Messrs. Dunlap & Read. James H. Miller pre- 



826 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



siding as judge at the trial. Immediately after the crimes there 
was strong talk of lynching Medlin, but cooler heads and better 
counsel obtained, and the law was permitted to take its proper 
course. 

THE JOSEPH NEELY CASE. 

Joe Neely and Alva Lilly were first cousins residing near the 
mouth of Little Bluestone River, in Jumping Branch District. 
Neely was about twenty-four years of age, the son of E. B. Neely, 
Esq., and the grandson of Levi M. Neely, Sr. Lilly was about 
thirty years of age, and the son of John H. Lilly, and also the 
grandson of Levi M. Neely, Sr. They were boys raised together in 
the same community, Lilly being a farmer and Neely a merchant. 
On the 28th day of July, 1905, both of these young men were in 
the city of Hinton, Neely peddling produce, and started home late 
in the afternoon. Lilly was drinking and riding horseback; Neely 
in charge of a wagon load of merchandise, accompanied by his 
brother, a youth of twenty-one years. When Neely had reached 
the point near the mouth of Big Bluestone River, going up the 
west side of New River, it being very dark, but having a lantern, 
he was overtaken by Lilly, who was in a very bad humor, and began 
abusing and cursing the Neelys, threatening them bodily harm. The 
young men had on former occasions some hot words, and were not 
on the best of terms. After some w r ords, Lilly having called Neely 
vile names, he caught Neely by the coat and shook him. Neely 
drew his revolver and shot Lilly, killing him instantly, shooting 
three times, tw T o of the shots taking effect. Neely at once gave 
himself up to Jonathan Lee Barker, a notary, who lived in the 
neighborhood, waived examination and gave bond to answer an 
indictment. 

A coroner's inquest was held and Neely was held to answer to 
the grand jury for indictment on the charge of murder, but was 
admitted to bail by the justice, C. L. Parker, in the penalty of 
$2,000.00. At the October Term of the circuit court he w r as in- 
dicted for murder, and on his motion a continuance was granted on 
account of the absence of witnesses, a colored woman, Geo. Pack's 
wife. He was granted bail in the penalty of $10,000.00, bond being 
increased. Col. Thomas G. Mann and Hon. C. W. Osenton of the 
Fayette Bar, were retained to defend the accused ; attorneys for 
the State, R. F. Dunlap, T. N. Read and Hon. A. A. Lilly, of the 
Beckley Bar, John H. Lilly, the father of the deceased, having em- 
ployed him to assist in the prosecution. The trial came on at the 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 827 

January Term, 1906, January 10th. Twenty-two witnesses were 
examined for the State and forty-four were examined for the de- 
fense. The evidence was all concluded by five o'clock on the 11th, 
and the arguments began at seven p. m., four hours being allotted 
to each side. The argument for the State was opened by K. F. 
Dunlap, who occupied three-quarters of an hour. He was followed 
by T. G. Mann for the defense in an argument of three-quarters 
of an hour. The argument for the defense was closed by C. \Y. 
Osenton in an hour, and A. A. Lilly closed for the State in one 
hour and a quarter. The jury was sent to their room at eleven 
o'clock, but did not undertake to reach an agreement, and were 
adjourned until the next morning, the 12th. They were out about 
half an hour, and returned a verdict of not guilty, the jury being 
unanimous for acquittal on the first ballot. Captain C. R. Price 
was the foreman. Hon. A. A. Lilly, who aided in the prosecution, 
is a second cousin of the Xeelys and the same relation to Lilly, the 
deceased. The jury was composed of Joseph W. Ryan, C. R. Price, 
C. C. Coulter, Mathew Daniel, R. Porter Boyd, Thomas Shoemaker, 
Tom Wiseman, C. D. Albert, J. W. Coiner, Hugh Boon, Pete Dono- 
hoe and Hugh Boon. Great interest was manifested at the trial, 
the court house being crowded to its fullest capacity. 

MURDER OF HUNTER AND OTHERS. 

During the construction of the Big Bend Tunnel a colored man 
by the name of Johnson killed Booker Hunter, clerk for the con- 
tractor. W. R. Johnson. Hunter had been at Menifee's camp and 
was returning at the east end of the tunnel when he was attacked 
by Johnson, killed and thrown out of the county road into the cut. 
The murder was committed for the $240.00 which Hunter carried. 
The negro went to spending money, was apprehended, confined in 
the jail at L T nion, tried, convicted and hung. This was about the 
time of the formation of Summers and before any courts were held 
in the county. Another murder was committed about the same 
time, during the construction of this tunnel, by a man by the name 
of Hess, who killed Rhodes in a fight. Hess was followed to 
Goshen, Virginia, by Sira W. Willy, captured, returned to the 
county and convicted of manslaughter. The first man buried in 
Hinton was the Irish peddler by the name of Richards, who was 
killed by Jim Ashby. The peddler was buried in the woods above 
the street leading from the railroad crossing up the hill to the new 
school building. Jim Ashby was captured by S. W. Willy, placed 



828 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



in jail at Union, escaped therefrom and was never recaptured. He 
was brought to the inquest held over the peddler, which lasted two 
days. The manner of the arrest of Ashby was an exhibition of the 
fearlessness of S. W. Willy in his younger days. Ashby was a 
dangerous man, was working in getting out stone for railroad con- 
struction above Hinton. The peddler came along, and he said he 
would not work that day, and he came along with the peddler; 
they stopped at Jim Calloway's. The peddler left his pack at that 
place and went on down the railroad track to get his watch re- 
paired. Ashby accompanied him and returned by himself. The 
peddler was never again seen alive, and his body was not found 
until the following Thursday. Squire Henry Milburn held the in- 
quest, summoned a coroner's jury from the county, there not being 
enough men then at Hinton to make up a jury; the jury was sum- 
moned by Mr. Willy. The body of the peddler was found near the 
old graveyard, badly decomposed. Ashby went to spending money, 
paid Joe Hinton $20.00, not having any before the disappearance 
of. the peddler. The peddler was killed by being knocked in the 
head, his skull crushed and jaw bone broken. 'Mr. Willy took up 
the case, followed Ashby to his boarding house, slept in the same 
room with him, and it was during the night, while Ashby was 
crawling from his bed to W'illy's, that he made the arrest, after his 
escape from the jail in Monroe County. Mr. Willy got on his trail, 
followed him for many miles, but was never able to make his arrest 
the second time. This arrest by Mr. Willy showed him to be a 
man of great and fearless nerve. 



CAPE FORD CASE. 

Caperton Allen Ford was a resident of Talcott District. Nu- 
merous petty thefts had occurred in Talcott District, and finally 
the premises of John W. Francis, a merchant of most excellent 
character, were broken and entered at Lowell, and a lote of fine 
hides and fur skins stolen. Suspicion pointed to Ford, and the case 
was put into the hands of Sira W. Willy, then deputy sheriff under 
M. V. Calloway. Ford was arrested and placed in the jail of Mon- 
roe County, the jail of this county not having been deemed sufficient. 
He made his escape, and after several months, Mr. Willy located 
him in Northern Missouri at a place in the country working as a 
farm hand, with a Dutchman by the name of Bunerstock. Requi- 
sition papers were secured from the Governor of West Virginia 
and placed in the hands of Messrs. Calloway and Willy, who went 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 829 



directly to Missouri and succeeded in arresting him while at work 
in a field. Ford had begun to earn a reputation, and 'his employer 
had some disposition to stand by him and resist his removal back 
to this jurisdiction for trial, but after an examination of the papers 
had by these astute officers, he became convinced. Ford was so 
chagrined that he declined to go to the house for his effects. He 
came back with the officers under arrest, was tried in the circuit 
court of this county by a jury, found guilty and sentenced to con- 
finement in the West Virginia penitentiary, and served out his sen- 
tence, being prosecuted by James H. Miller and defended by Wil- 
liam R. Thompson. Ford had some connections and friends near 
Forest Hill, to whom he wrote under the name of "Allen," his 
middle name, being named for Allen Caperton Ford. From these 
letters he was quietly located, through astute cleverness of Officer 
Willy and brought to the bar ot justice. Since serving his sentence 
he has continued a resident of the State and county a part of the 
time, and has been a quiet, peaceable, law-abiding citizen. He is 
now a resident of Mason County, W est Virginia. 

John R. Davis, Plaintiff, \ 

vs. > In Slander. 

Wm. Davis, Defendant. ) 

This was one of the few slander causes ever tried in the county 
by a jury, tried on the 3d and 4th of September, 1890, and judg- 
ment was rendered on the 10th for $1,000 in favor of the plaintiff. 
It was a case of son against father. 

Wm. Davis was one of the pioneer farmers on Madam's Creek, 
where his thrifty sons, Horton and Garfield, still live, who had ac- 
cumulated for his time a considerable fortune in land and money. 
He was a very gruff man, without educational opportunities, and 
when his son, John R., married against his wishes, he said some 
harsh things, to which John and his wife took exceptions and in- 
stituted this action. The jury which tried the case was J. M. Hix, 
James H. Hobbs, S. S. Crotty, J, N. Lowry, Gaston Huffman, J. W. 
Coiner, W. M. Cottle, J. D. Chattin, J. C. Clark, Isaac Coleman, 
L. G. Lowe and J. H. Allen. 

The old gentleman proceeded after judgment to pay the same, 
and to execute his will and disinherit his son John, and prevent 
him from forever participating in his estate, and he received no 
part of it, except what he got out of this slander suit. 

Another of the notorious cases for slander was that of Indian 



830 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



Creek, John Buckland vs. James Keatley, which was tried Sep- 
tember 6, 1892. Buckland accused Keatley of calling him a thief 
and said he was dishonest, whereupon he proceeded to seek com- 
pensation for his wounded reputation by action in slander, and se- 
cured a verdict for S1.00 damages and his costs expended. The jury 
that tried the case was S. W. Dean, A. L. Gwinn, T. G. Flint, W, T. 
Meador, J. N. Waddle, J. D. Bolton, F. A. Hale, J. V. Arthur, A. G. 
Patterson, M. D. Xeely, T. A. Dick and A. J. Christian. This action 
resulted in the complete financial annihilation of Mr. Buckland. 
His property was all sold in another suit on the chancery side of 
the court by Keatley to enforce the payment of unpaid purchase 
money due him for claims to be due him by Buckland. 

The Wm. Davis referred to. when a young man went to Lick 
Creek to sell John and Alex. Miller a dun horse. When he arrived 
at Miller's they were not at home, and he had to stay all night. 
After he got to bed late in the night John Miller came home and 
learned of Davis' presence and his business to sell the horse. John 
went down to the stable, took out the horse, saddled him and gal- 
loped him over the fields. Davis, however, caught on to what was 
up, and was an unknown looker on. The next morning Miller was 
prepared to close a deal, and was willing to take Davis' word as 
to the capacity of the animal, and a trade was soon closed, Miller 
thinking all the while that Davis knew nothing of his nocturnal test. 



Helen M. Withrow, Plaintiff. J 

vs I 
T . . " . ~ . _ ~ . . V In Slander. 

John A. Smithson and barah t. bmithson, j 

His Wife, Defendants. J 

This was a notorious "slander" case. The plaintiff and the de- 
fendant were neighbors, and it was alleged that the defendant used 
her tongue "too freely" and without due regard for the truth, and 
damages were claimed. It was not alleged that the husband was 
guilty of any offense. The trial came on on the 20th day of Feb- 
ruary, 1889, with Adams & Miller, attorneys for the plaintiff, and 
Thompson & Lively for the defense. The jurors who tried the 
case were Jackson Meadows, Henry Milburn, Jr., J. D. Bolton, J. W. 
Ellis, S. A. Meador, J. J. Christian, John Dove, j. B. Farley. E. B. 
Farley, P. M. Buckland, H. C. Farley and T. G. Lowe. After a 
long trial judgment was rendered and a verdict for the plaintiff for 
$1,000 and costs. 

John A. Smithson was worth considerable property in lands on 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



831 



Griffith's Creek, and the alleged slander having been spoken by his 
wife, the judgment went against him for the whole amount. An 
appeal was applied for to the Supreme Court of Appeals, but was 
refused. A chancery suit was instituted on this judgment, and the 
Smithson lands were all sold in satisfaction of the judgment, en- 
tirely impoverishing the defendants. This sale included the farm 
on which D. P. Thomas now lives, and should be a lesson to all 
long-tongued women. The plaintiff was a young lady, unmarried, 
and one of the Withrows of Lick Creek. 



J. S. Hite, Plaintiff, 1 

; s " I In Ejectment. 

John A. Richmond and Robert Hix, [ 

Defendants. J 

This is one of the few ejectment causes tried in the county, and 
arose out of a controversy over an interlock on the old Kaylor land 
on the Hump Mountain, and resulted in a victory and verdict for 
the defendants, which was quite unsatisfactory to the plaintiff. 
The attorneys for plaintiff were Fowler & Miller, and W. R. Thomp- 
son and W. AY. Adams for the defendants. 

The jury who rendered the verdict. were O. P. Hoover. James 
Price, Joseph Cox, J. F. Wood, J. A. Sims, T. B. Barker. E. B. 
Neely, James Boyd, Wm, Woodson, A. J. Miller. J. L. Young and 
A. G. Patterson. The trial was had on September 10, 1884. 

The land in controversy was a small tract, and the costs were 
more than the land was worth. The tract of which this was a part 
was acquired by Michael Kaylor from Wm. Richmond, Jr.. by deed 
dated on the 1st day of October, 1819, the tract being 1.655 acres 
conveyed. Wm. Richmond was the father of Samuel Richmond, 
who married Sally Caperton, and had purchased the land from 
Wm, McClung and George Meys, of Bath County. Yirginia, by 
deed dated November, 1818, and adjointed Sampson Mathews and 
others. The deed was acknowledged before Joseph Alderson and 
Curtis Alderson. justices of the peace. The survey of the disputed 
portion was made by Hon. Wm. Haynes. Kaylor paid $100 for a 
one-half interest in the 1,655 acres. Michael Kaylor made his last 
will on the 29th clay of November, 1859, written by Col. George 
Henry, a grandson of Patrick Henry. 



832 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



THE CASE OF LEE YOUNG. 

John Lewis Young was a farmer residing on the waters of 
Beech Run, in Jumping Branch District, on a little rough mountain 
farm, on the road leading from Hinton to Jumping Branch. He 
unfortunately was in the habit of coming to Hinton and using 
ardent spirits to an intemperate extent. He had a large family of 
children, some eight or nine, and his wife. Lee was one of his 
boys, about eighteen or nineteen years of age. 

Mr. Young came to Hinton, became somewhat intoxicated and 
returned home. Some controversy between his wife and himself 
arose, Lee taking the part of his mother, and without legal provo- 
cation went up-stairs, secured a pistol, came down into the Irving 
room and shot his father through the heart, killing him almost in- 
stantly. Lee gave himself up to the authorities and was indicted 
for murder, and tried and convicted of voluntary manslaughter. 
To excuse himself, he claimed self-defense, and that the shooting 
was done to save himself from death or danger of great bodily 
harm, and in the protection of his mother. 

The trial occurred at the old frame Methodist Church in Hin- 
ton, the court house then being under repairs. The State was rep- 
resented by the prosecuting attorney, Jas. H. Miller, and T. N. 
Read ; the accused was represented by Colonel Thomas G. Mann, 
of the Hinton bar, and Major James H. McGinnis, one of the most 
astute lawyers of this section of the State, and known throughout 
the State as a great wit. The trial lasted about two days, the 
defense being ably conducted by Colonel Mann and Major McGin- 
nis, Mr. Mann being then one of the best criminal lawyers at the 
bar; Judge McWhorter presiding. 

A view of the premises was demanded, and the jury taken to 
view the location of the tragedy, some five miles from the court 
house, on the Beech Run road to Jumping Branch. After the ar- 
guments by the counsel, the jury in a short time returned a ver- 
dict of murder in the second degree, which left the infliction of 
punishment to the court of from five to eighteen years in the peni- 
tentiary. In viewing the premises the law requires that the pris- 
oner shall be conducted with the jury to take the view. Inad- 
vertently this was overlooked, and instead of the prisoner accom- 
panying the jury in the custody of the sheriff, and with the prose- 
cuting attorney, judge, clerk and attorneys, he was left in Hin- 
ton, and the view made without his presence. A motion for a new 
trial was submitted by his attorneys, and under the law the court 



THE E WART-MILLER BUILDING. 
Erected in 1905. 



HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 833 



would have been compelled to have granted a new trial; but the 
attorneys compromised the matter, and it was agreed that the 
verdict should stand, and that sentence of five years' confinement 
in the penitentiary should be inflicted. This was done and the 
sentence carried out. At this time Mr. Young has been discharged 
from the penitentiary, and is now a laborer in the city of Hinton, 
conducting himself well, and is a peaceful and quiet man. 

THE DEATH OF JOHN CRAWFORD. 

John Crawford was a citizen of the Flat Top region of Raleigh 
County, a man about fifty-five years of age. He frequently came 
to Hinton, indulged in the use of strong drink to excess, and left 
for his home, a distance of some twenty-five miles through the 
country, in an intoxicated condition. 

On March, 1893, Mr. Crawford had been in Hinton for a day 
or two, and left with his pockets well filled with bottles of whisky, 
crossed the river at the lower ferry, and proceeded up Beech Run 
late in the evening, about dusk. On the next morning early he 
was found in the middle of the Beech Run road, a short distance 
above the Burning Spring, on the Calloway-Barker land, with his 
face in the mud and on all fours. It was a cold, drizzly March 
night, and his body was perfectly stiff when discovered. He had 
fallen on his knees, with his hands extended in the mud and his face 
also, and being too intoxicated to assist himself, there and in that 
position perished. A family residing near by heard during the night 
what they thought somebody calling, but hearing no further noise, 
paid no attention to it. 

Suspicion of foul play having arisen, a coroner's inquest was 
held, but it was determined that no crime had been committed, 
and that the death had occurred from the use in excess of intoxi- 
cating liquor. The position of the body and the circumstances 
were the most horrifying ever witnessed or imaginable. 

He left a large family of boys surviving him, who have now 
grown to manhood and reside in this and Raleigh counties, and 
are useful citizens. 

John Crawford was a brother of Jas. H. Crawford, of Ballen- 
gee, in this county. One of the sons of John is now a thrifty anil 
very competent constable of Shady Springs District, of Raleigh 
County. Another, Charles, is a prosperous farmer and railway em- 
ployee near Foss, on Greenbrier River. 



834 HISTORY OF SUMMERS COUNTY, WEST VIRGINIA. 



NEW RIVER DIVISION. 

Order of Railway Conductors was organized in Hinton August 
1, 1887. The first officers were J. H. Schutts, Chief Conductor ; 
W. T. Crawford, Assistant Chief Conductor : J. F. Drish, S. and F. 

Fraternal Order of Eagles was. organized in Hinton November 
28, 1904. The first officers were J. W. Myrtle, Past Worthy Presi- 
dent; James F. Smithy, Worthy President: W. L. Fredeking, 
Worthy Vice-President ; J. R. Lilly. Secretary; W. R. Miller, Treas- 
urer. 



INDEX 



A PAGE. 

Ayers, J. M* 419 

Adkins 474 

Alderson 523 

Allison 542 

Allen 589 

Abe, Story of 600 

Allen, Nathaniel . 638 

Adams, Hon. W. W 682 

Accident, A Fatal 732 

Alum Springs 746 

Assessments Town Lots 762 

Attorneys at Law 767 

Attorneys, Sketches of 773 

Alderson vs. Miller 803 

Armstrong, Riley. Killing of 819 

Assessors 755 

B 

Bryant, J. Fred 375 

Blake 385 

Brightwell, W. J 418 

Bolton, H. A.. . .' 422 

Bolton, H. A.. Death of 424 

Brown 429 

Breen, Michael X 475 

Bowling 495 

Ballengee. David G 497 

Brown 524 

Bacon 560 

Bragg 569 

Bowles 571 

Barksdale. Dr 572 

Barksdale, Wm. L 573 

Ballangee, R. T 589 

Bailey, Ann 593 

Baber, Chas. A 676 

Barker. Genealogy 679 

Boude Family 698 

B. P. O. E. No. 821 721 



PAGE. 

Barger's Springs 742-746 

Bennett-Lewis Case.. 821 

Bryan 569 

Barton- Family 690 

C 

Clark, Chas 477 

Clark, Rufns 49K 

Compton 490 

Cook, T. X 507 

Carden 518 

Cundiff 532 

Cochran 546 

Crawford 553 

Cook Family 608 

Clayton 621 

Campbell, A. X ; 622 

Campbell, Rev. J. P 626 

Campbell 652 

Christian, Jos. J 656 

C. & O. Ry *722 

County Supt's of Schools 749 

Corporations 750 

Commissioners County Court.... 754 

Clerks Circuit Court 754 

Clerks County Court 754 

Coroners 755 

Constables 756 

Carnes Case 791 

Cales vs. Miller 801 

Carden vs. Brown 811 

Coleman. Jake, Case 822 

Crawford. John, Death of 833 



Dooley Case 817 

Davis vs. Davis 829 

Duncan Family 461 



836 



INDEX. 



PAGE. 



Daly 489 

De Quasie 511 

Dobbins, W. C 513 

Deeds 547 

Dunn, E. L 575, 

Dillon, Rev. Henry 692 

Dunn, L. M 717 

Doctors 779 

Delegates Secession Convention.. 749 

E 

Ellison 542 

Ewart 547 

Fox, J. A 375 

F 

Frenches 455 

Fowler family 479 

Fowler, Elbert 432 

Ford 521 

Fredeking 521 

Heflin, A. R 529 

Fox 556 

Foster 557 

Ford 591 

Flanagan 612 

Flint, Enos. B 620 

Ferrell 637 

Farley family 705 

Fox, Dr. J. A 712 

Foss Bridge 737 

Free Lance 737 

Forts 776 

Farley, Chapman, trial 824 

Ford, Cape. Case 828 

Foster, Mike 714 

(i 

Graham. John W 374 

Garvey. John B 400 

Gott 489 

George 516 

Gerow 540 

George, Jas. H 618 

Grimmett 636 

Gooch 650 

Gwinn. Andrew 661 

Gallagher, F. M 672 



PAGE. 



Garten, Chas. Sr 686 

Green Sulphur Spgs. Analysis.... 746 

Graham vs. Graham 789 

Greenbrier Springs 741 

Gwinn, Marion 664 

H 

Houchins, Allen 454 

Hughes, David..... 488 

Houchins 498 

Hutchinson . f amity ... 507 

Hobbs 525 

Heflin, A. R 529 

Hinton, Jno 533 

Hinton-Richmond fight 535 

Harvey, Woodson 539 

Hinton, Jos 541 

Hedrick 544 

Hines 545 

Huffman 585 

Hinton-Johnson fight 574 

Haynes 558 

Harvey 617 

Hatcher, J. E. C. L 643 

Hinton 663 

Hunter Murders and others 827 

Hoge, B. L 688 

Harman 709 

Hinton Lodge, A. F. A. M 781 

Hinton Toll Bridge 735 

Hinton Water Works 735 

Hale case 810 

Hite vs. Richmond 831 

Hinton. Mrs. Avis 655 

Hutchinson, Michael 635 

Hume, Thompson 668 

I 

Inscription on Bacon tombstone.. 567 

Ingles & Draper 711 

-Indian Rock and other things.... 758 

Irish settlement 778 

J 

Jones 513 

Jones, T. J 552 

Johnston. Albert Sidney 606 

Jailors ... 749 



INDEX. 



837 



PAGE. 



Judges 752 

Justices 755 

Jordan 387 

James 500 

K 

Keatley 519 

Kesler 567 

Kaylor & Hix 639 

Keller 641 

Keadle 693 

Kinley, Blaine 808 

L 

Leftwich 531 

Lowe 553 

Lane 578 

Lindeman Springs 745 

Land Assessments, 1907 '. . . . /oi 

Land Assessments for 1907 763 

Lavender, J. B 384 

Lilly family 462 

Lilly, R. W..- , 466 

Lilly, Frances 467 

Lilly : 468 

Lilly, Geo. W 468 

Lilly, T. H 470 

Lilly, Greenlee 473 

Lively ' 493 

Lusher 497 

Lowry, John 498 

Lee. William, lynching of 822 

Landcraft, G. C 586 

Lawyers, two unfortunate 772 

Lumbermen 782 

M 

Miller, Mark 51 3 

McGinnis 537 

Miller, Brice and others 552 

McCreery 578 

McCreery, John W 582 

Manning, M. A.... 604 

Meador, Daniel Morgan 616 

Mann, Thos. G 671 

Members of Congress 747 

Memb'rs Constitutional Convention 749 

Members House Delegates 752 



PAGE. 



Marriage register 760 

Miscellaneous 765 

Murders, two 788 

Martin, confession of W. L 794 

Medlin, Elbert, case 807 

McKelvey case 804 

Miller 386 

Miller Wm. E 390 

Miller, Jas. Henry 400 

Meadows ". 401 

Meador 403 

Maddy , 425 

Maxwell 432 

Manser 454 

McNeer 454 

McCulloch 454 

Mahon 474 

Medlin. Brad, case 825 

N 

Noell . ... 511 

Neely 695 

Noell 713 

Neely, Joseph, case 826 

P 

Peters 504 

Parker, Jos. A 648 

Parker, C. L 649 

Peck 654 

Patterson 674 

Pioneers of Pipestem 707 

Parker Opera House castastrophe 733 

Pence Springs 738 

Prosecuting Attorneys 753 

Postmasters at Hinton 756 

Postoffices 757 

Population 762 

Points of interest about W. Va.. 762 

Pack 447 

Read. Thos. Nash 526 

Richmond family 410 

Ratliff mystery ' 431 

Railway conductors order 834 

Rollison 585 

Reynolds, L. V. shooting of 820 



838 



INDEX. 



^ PAGE. 

Swope tombstone 598 

Smith, Jas. F. 669 

Scott, Jas K 674 

Stenographers 738 

Surveyors of the County 746 

Senators, U. S 748 

Senators, State 749 

Sheriffs : 751 

Statistics 759 

Sheffey 382 

Sanders, R. W 428 

Swope 438 

Shumate 458 

Shumate, B. P 459 

State vs. Ford and Gray 813 

Slagle, Andy, case 816 

T 

Thompson, Jas 602 

Thompson, Wm. R 633-4 

Thompson 644 

Thompson, C. L 645 

Talcott 728 

Talcott Toll Bridge 735 

Talyor, Silas 420 



PAGE, 



Townsley T. W 430 

Turner vs. Hutchinson 813 

V 

Valuations 762 

W 

Withrow, T. P. killing of 799 

Woodrum, Major Richard 656 

Walker, Lee 473 

Wiggins, W. B 51C 

Withrow 55G 

Williams, Dr. Samuel 577 

Witte, Lewis 602 

Wyant 583 

Willey 629 

Warren, M. M 414 

Wiseman, John W 417 

Withrow vs. Smithson 820 

Y 

Young, Lee, case 382 

Young 608 



4 



